


Visions of Eternity

by engagemythrusters



Series: Visions [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Rewrite, Developing Relationship, M/M, Psychic Abilities, Telekinesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engagemythrusters/pseuds/engagemythrusters
Summary: "They wouldn’t call him peculiar. Or strange. Or odd, or weird, or different. No, no, the only word they could use for the boy was 'abnormal,' because that was what he was. Not. Normal.Normal boys didn’t tell their fathers that the neighbour was thinking about punching the wall only moments before a loud, agonised shout resounded from next door. Normal boys didn’t stare at their sister all day long and then announce that Jimmy from down the street didn’t like the taste of her lip gloss, because he preferred peach to cherry. Normal boys didn’t knock their mum’s favourite tea pot down to the floor from the top shelf of the cupboards whilst standing in the next room. Normal boys couldn’t sing the alphabet in seven different languages before the time they were four. Normal boys weren’t Ianto Jones."Or: Ianto Jones was not a normal boy. Ianto Jones was, in fact, as far from normal as one could get, and everyone he met knew it.Torchwood was a place for not-normal.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Visions [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915483
Comments: 91
Kudos: 277





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All chapters written and to be posted daily.

If asked, Alun and Glenda Jones would definitely call themselves normal. Completely, entirely, one hundred percent normal.

If also asked, they would say their son was… _not_.

Oh, their daughter was normal, that much was certain. Sure, she was little spacy, a little bland, a little bit of a loose cannon. She got into scuffles and kissed idiot boys and forgot to do her homework more often than not, but that was expected. Rhiannon was a perfectly _normal_ girl of thirteen.

But that boy of theirs…

They wouldn’t call him peculiar. Or strange. Or odd, or weird, or different. No, no, the only word they could use for the boy was “abnormal,” because that was what he was. Not. Normal.

Normal boys didn’t tell their fathers that the neighbour was thinking about punching the wall only moments before a loud, agonised shout resounded from next door. Normal boys didn’t stare at their sister all day long and then announce that Jimmy from down the street didn’t like the taste of her lip gloss, because he preferred peach to cherry. Normal boys didn’t knock their mum’s favourite tea pot down to the floor from the top shelf of the cupboards whilst standing in the next room. Normal boys couldn’t sing the alphabet in seven different languages before the time they were four. Normal boys weren’t Ianto Jones.

To say Alun and Glenda lived in fear of their young son wasn’t _exactly_ accurate, but it wasn’t far from the truth, either. They were cautious around him. They tried to discourage him from saying things like “Mister Pritchard down on the corner hates Miss Abbott’s cat, and that’s why he’s yelling at it right now,” and, on the off chance he sent things flying around the room, made sure it was his own room he was in. Glenda could spare to lose the last few of Ianto’s action figures, but not the sole surviving cup of her nan’s teaset.

Also, Ianto didn’t smile very much, something Glenda had asked him about once. He had replied, “if you had all these things in your head, you wouldn’t have much to smile about, either” which was absolutely _terrifying_ to hear from a five-year-old.

So, yes, Ianto was not normal and his parents were… _concerned_ about it.

And their concerns came to a head one day, when both Alun and Glenda received a call from Ianto’s school.

“They called you, too?” Glenda asked when she found him waiting for her at the school.

“I _am_ his father,” Alun pointed out, though he was as much worried by the implications of calling them _both_ in as she was.

They were led to the office by a frazzled-looking secretary. She didn’t say a word to the pair of them, but she did keep throwing them scared and suspicious looks, as if it were _their_ fault, whatever it was Ianto had done. That was entirely unfair to blame it on them, they thought, because everyone should be able to see that they actively disapproved of being abnormal, seeing as how normal they were.

The head teacher, Mr Marsden, was a wreck of a man, as far as they could tell. He wrung his hands all the while introducing himself and his position to the Joneses, his eyes jumping around the room the entire time. Behind him, at a small table, Ianto was colouring on a sheet of paper with crayon, ignoring the lot of them.

“But what about our son?” Glenda asked as the man kept babbling.

Mr Marsden blinked at her. “Oh. Yes. Him. Right. Well.”

Glenda and Alun shared a glance.

“He’s, um, well, I don’t know what you tolerate at your house,” Mr Marsden said, his voice rising slightly in pitch, “but he’s been saying things that aren’t… necessarily appropriate for a six-year-old. Or for _anyone_ , for that matter.”

“We don’t tolerate anything inappropriate, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Alun said defensively.

“What’s he been saying?” Glenda asked, holding a hand up to her husband.

“Well… the thing is… Mr Andrews is a respectable teacher, you have to understand,” Mr Marsden said, though he didn’t sound very sure of himself. “He’s… a good man…”

“But what does that have to do with Ianto?” Glenda asked. She looked over to Ianto, who was still colouring and paying the three of them no heed. “What’s he said?”

“He said…” Mr Marsden grimaced. “Well, he said that… Mr Andrews was going to go home and… and hit his wife.”

“What?” Alun demanded.

“Not those words specifically,” Mr Marsden said quickly. “But that was the implication. Mr Andrews has the intentions of returning home and beating Mrs Andrews.”

“Oh my god,” Glenda breathed, looking down at her son.

“So, you understand why we extracted him from class, and we were waiting for the two of you to show up, because—”

Mr Marsden cut off, his face going sheet-white as a quiet _zip!_ sort of noise came from behind him. Glenda and Alun glanced around him to see Ianto still colouring. Or _not_ colouring, to be precise. He was still studying his paper with a focused frown, but his hand, instead of colouring the page, was empty and held out into the space in front of him. Glenda, Alun, and Mr Marsden all jumped slightly as another _zip!_ noise came, a blue crayon zooming itself into Ianto’s outstretched hand. Ianto resumed colouring as if nothing had happened, and Glenda and Alun stared at Mr Marsden.

“—because that has also been happening,” Mr Marsden said weakly.

“Shit,” Alun said. “Shit shit _shit_. I knew this would happen!”

Glenda glared at her husband as he rounded on her. “Don’t look at me; it wasn’t as if we could keep him from school!”

“You mean this has happened _before_?”

“Listen,” Alun said, turning back to Mr Marden. “Our son is… look, he’s fine. He’s absolutely fine, you shouldn’t—”

The blue crayon flew back, and Alun shut up, because there was no way to describe _that_ as “fine.”

Mr Marsden swallowed and said, “I… was told to call someone.”

“Who?” Alun asked, just as Glenda asked, “By whom?”

“Well, we thought… since he’s… doing that,” Mr Marsden said, nodding his head to Ianto, who had just summoned himself a green crayon, “he must be right about Mr Andrews. And, well… I haven’t the faintest idea how to stop someone from planning to hurt his wife, but I’m guessing if he’s thinking of doing it now… he must’ve done it before. So. I called the police.”

“And?” Glenda asked.

“Well, they checked in with the wife, and…”

“Ianto was right, wasn’t he?” she asked.

Mr Marsden nodded. “He was. They called us back. And then… I figured, it couldn’t _hurt_ to tell them about the, the um, the flying supplies… and then they went all quiet. Dead silent. And I was passed over to someone, and they told me I should call…”

“Call _who_?” Alun asked angrily when Mr Marsden’s voice puttered out.

Mr Marsden bit his lips, looking at the floor. He stayed that way for a short moment, contemplating the pattern of the carpet. Then he gave a short huff of air, steeled himself, and glanced back up to catch their eyes.

“Have you ever heard of ‘Torchwood?’”

* * *

Glenda and Alun always took their two-hour trips to London in complete silence. Not even the radio played in their old, broken-down Ford Cortina. And they dared not speak a word. If they _did_ speak, they’d have to talk about why they never answered Rhiannon’s questions of “where’s Ianto gone?” and why they didn’t visit their son more. They’d have to talk about why they agreed to this in the first place, or why they didn’t feel as guilty as they should. So, it was best not to speak at all, when they had nothing they wanted to say and nothing they wanted to hear in return.

They only started speaking when they entered that wretched brick building by the Thames. Alun would always ask why they had to hold him in London instead of Cardiff, and Glenda would always have to repeat what the Director had told them on that first day: Cardiff just didn’t have the resources.

“Would be less of a drive, is all I’m saying,” Alun would mutter, each and every time.

Glenda would just sit quietly on the bench and wait, clutching onto her handbag as if it were her only lifeline.

They didn’t always have that bench there. It was only put up after their third trip to London, and Glenda was certain that its sole purpose was for the two of them. Torchwood just didn’t _have_ visitors, they knew. Not unless it was the Joneses. Alun just tried not to think about benches or brick buildings or secret organisations. He hated this place, and the less he thought about it, the better.

“Mr and Mrs Jones?”

“Oh, he’s new,” Glenda said as they followed the smartly dressed man to the lift.

“They’re always new,” Alun replied.

“This one’s ginger.”

“So was the one two before him.”

Glenda pursed her lips and said nothing more.

The lift ride down was always excruciating. Alun hated the rickety feel of it. Glenda hated the anticipation. The man bringing them down usually hated that he had to bring them down. Everyone was always unhappy. Of course, that didn’t change once they got out of the lift and were led through the long, dark corridors, but still. The lift always made it ten times worse.

They always stopped at the end of the longest hallway, right in front of the large cell door. The man would always list off the rules, get their agreement in ink, and then unlock the door. Then they could see their son.

Ianto was sitting at the very centre of the back wall. He gazed up when the door was open, and Glenda smiled down at him. He didn’t say a word, and looked back down at his legs, tucked away and crossed into a tailor’s seat.

“Happy New Year,” Glenda said, scrounging up some cheer she didn’t feel.

Ianto did not look back up. Glenda noticed the patch of shaven hair on the back of his head, but she didn’t ask. Rule number one: No asking about what happened to Ianto.

Alun sat on the bed (if one could call that a bed) and tried not to look at anything. Best not to think about the things that went on in this place, he had decided.

“We were going to bring you some homemade food but—”

“Food isn’t allowed,” Ianto finished for Glenda.

“Sorry, love,” Glenda said.

“You didn’t want to bring me anything, anyway. It makes you feel guilty.”

Glenda glanced over at Alun, who fidgeted.

“Do they do anything nice for the New Year here?” Glenda asked. “Any fun breakfast, or something?”

“I had porridge, like I do every morning.”

“Well, did they sprinkle some extra sugar in it? Cinnamon? Chocolate?”

Ianto looked up and blinked at her.

“You don’t have to stay,” he said. “Nan’s got a cold and you’re worried about her. It’s okay to go.”

“We’re here for you, boy,” Alun said. “Not your Nan.”

“But you want to be there for Nan.”

The “and you don’t want to be here for me” remained unspoken, but it didn’t matter. It was louder than any uttered word.

“Don’t ask,” Ianto said when Alun opened his mouth again. “You already know they don’t.”

Alun shut his mouth. Of course Torchwood wouldn’t give the boy toys or books or gadgets to entertain himself with. They weren’t a decent lot here.

“You can go now,” Ianto said, looking back down at his legs.

Glenda bit her lip. She wanted to hold him, but rule two got in the way. No touching.

“Ianto, love—”

“You can go now.”

“Is that what you want?” she asked.

“It’s what you want.”

Alun and Glenda shared another look. There wasn’t going to be any denial. It was the truth and Ianto knew it. There wasn’t any point in sugar-coating or dissembling.

“We’ll be back in three months, like usual,” Glenda said.

“No, you won’t. Nan’s going to die. Then you’ll plan her funeral over the visiting day.”

Neither parent had anything to say to that.

* * *

Alun ignored the calendar that day. Glenda couldn’t _not_ ignore it. She had to keep checking the date. It mocked her each and every time, but…

“Stop looking at it,” Alun told her. “It won’t make you feel any better.”

“We should go,” Glenda said. “It’s visiting day.”

Alun set down his papers. “It’s already supper.”

“We could still make it.”

“No. It’s far too late for me to want to drive all the way to London,” he said. “Besides. He doesn’t want us there.”

“Now, you can’t be sure of that.”

“Yes, I can,” he said, because he _could_ be damn sure. The boy never seemed to want to see them.

He raised his papers again and started reading again. Then sighed and lowered them.

“Stop fretting,” he said.

“He’s _unhappy_ ,” she said.

“Of course he is. He’s locked in a bloody cell all day with nothing to do. But it’s not like we can do a thing about it, so… stop worrying.”

“I think they do bad things to him,” she confessed.

Alun frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“Well… I’ve been noticing weird things about him in the past two years,” she said.

Shaved sections of his head, oddly-placed bruises, a scar right down the back of his neck, something beeping from inside his shirt somewhere over his heart just that one time, even some of those electrode pad things left on the sides of his temples the second time they’d gone in. And…

“And he was crying, last time we saw him,” she said.

Alun frowned deeper. “No, he wasn’t. I think I’d have noticed if he were blubbering.”

No boy of his was going to cry, even locked away in a cell. He would’ve made sure to snap it out of him, but he hadn’t seen such a thing last time. Sure, the boy had looked glum, but that was it.

“Well, he’d _been_ crying,” his wife said. “I’m sure of it.”

Ianto’s eyes had been red and puffy, and he’d sniffed a little to himself before looking up from his usual spot on the floor. That had alerted her to the matter, more than any shaved hairs or weird equipment. Ianto had never cried when he was with them, much like he’d never really smiled. Sure, he’d had his tears when he scraped his knee or skinned an elbow, but that was it, really. She’d never asked him about that, not after what he’d told her about smiling. She assumed it was the same reason, really. That, and after Rhiannon, a child without tears was almost a godsend. So, to see him in tears… either something was hurting, or something was very, very wrong. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Alun dismissed. “We’ll see him next time, and it will be _just fine_.”

Glenda wasn’t so certain.

* * *

Rhiannon watched her parents curiously. _Someone_ was going to have to mention the elephant in the room. Otherwise they were just going to get _weird_ , like they did every year, and that was never any fun.

Glenda’s eyes slid over to her daughter for the briefest of seconds as Rhiannon sighed. She hoped her daughter was smart enough to keep her mouth shut, because Alun seemed fit to burst at any sudden movements or exclamations.

Alun saw his wife eyeing their daughter. He saw his daughter watching them. He waited for them to do something, say something.

Rhiannon had her go just then.

“It’s the nineteenth,” she said.

“It is,” Alun agreed.

“Of August.”

“Indeed.”

“Ianto’s birthday.”

Glenda made a small noise. Alun silenced her with a glare.

“And?” Alun challenged Rhiannon.

“You haven’t done anything,” she said.

“Should we have? He’s not here.”

“But you usually go see him,” she said, testing the waters. Someday, she wanted to know what happened. Now was as good a chance as any. “Why don’t you now?”

“He’s not—" Glenda began.

“We don’t _usually_ ,” Alun cut over her. “We didn’t last year, did we?”

“But you did every year before,” Rhiannon said.

“Well, we’ve stopped.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because they’ve—”

“Told us we’re to stop seeing him,” Alun said, interrupting Glenda again.

Rhiannon’s eyes went wide. “What? Why?”

Alun shot a look to Glenda. Last year, Torchwood had said visits were on hold. Something about moving Ianto to a different location as they rebuilt their old brick building into a shiny, gleaming, skyscraper, fresh and new. But Rhiannon couldn’t know that.

“It’s for his own good,” Alun said. “And ours.”

“But _why_?”

“Love, he’s just—”

“Not normal,” Alun finished for his wife.

Glenda bit her lip and bowed her head.

“He’s not normal, and we are,” Alun went on. “That’s all that matters.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts,’” Alun told his daughter. “We’re not seeing your brother again, and that’s _final_. End of conversation.”

Rhiannon looked away in horror. Glenda bit back a sob. Alun lost a part of his soul.

* * *

Yvonne Hartman always loved the way her heels clacked beneath her feet. Something to be said about the power of the sound it emitted. A “move out of my way; I’m the important one here” sort of feel. Yvonne _craved_ that feel.

“You,” she said, pointing to the nearest suited idiot. “Find Costa’s latest PA. Melvin Patricks, I believe. Tell him he’s fired. Then fire him. The proper way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said.

She smiled. There was power behind that smile, too, now that she thought about it. “Drop the ‘ma’am.’ It’s Yvonne.”

Approachability was another sort of power. Oh, she was liking this new position. She’d worked so hard to get here. And she would work even harder to _keep_ herself here.

“You,” she said to the woman lurking in the hall. The woman straightened, as if pretending she hadn’t been eavesdropping. “I want everyone Costa favoured disposed of in a similar way. This is a new brand of Torchwood. I want his filth out.”

“Understood, ma—” The woman cleared her throat. “Yvonne.”

“You,” Yvonne said to the guard by the lift as she breezed by him. “You’re coming with me.”

“Ma’am.”

“Yvonne,” she corrected.

“Yvonne,” the guard said as he stepped into the lift with her.

“Going down,” she said, giving him a sharkish grin.

The way to make someone feel insignificant in a lift is to fold one’s arms, tilt one’s head, and stare at that person with a light, yet severe eye. The guard was practically sweating by the time they hit the bottom floor.

“What’s your name?” she asked the man.

“Roy Phillips.”

“Hm,” Yvonne said, and that was all.

She stalked off into the Archives, Roy Phillips following behind her. She was pleased that her long strides caused him to quicken his pace. Power was to be held in having those behind oneself speed along to catch up.

They pushed beyond the last of the stacks of the files and the final shelf to a wall. Yvonne tapped her toe impatiently.

“Um, ma’am?”

“Yvonne.”

“Yvonne?”

“Yes?” she asked, still staring down the wall.

“What are we—oh.”

The wall slid sideways, revealing a second, smaller lift.

“In you get,” Yvonne said, gesturing him in.

They crammed in together into the tight lift, and Yvonne took a moment to wonder just how stable this thing was. Phillips was evidently thinking the same, judging by the way his eyes kept darting around the small compartment. The man even _sighed_ in relief when they exited.

Another brisk stroll had them travelling through a labyrinth of corridors. Yvonne had memorised the twists and turns the moment she had received the stack of confidential documents from Costa’s reign. This had been Confidential File No. 0, and Yvonne had devoured it instantly.

This second false wall slid open with ease, and Yvonne grinned as she stepped into the small platform of the large room.

Being in the place was a lot different than reading about it. The room was immense, growing a few floors tall and sinking a few floors below, long as hell across and sidelong, all of it dark and empty, save for the small ledge that Yvonne now stood on and the inner room at the dead centre of the chasm. Well, more of a box than a room; a brightly-lit cube no bigger than a small bedroom that housed a plain and white table, chair, and bed.

And a person in silken, grey clothes, laying straight out on said bed.

“The walkway extends if you just take a step forward,” the person said, not taking his gaze from the top panel of the forcefield.

“I know,” Yvonne said.

“I _told_ Director Costa he should have ordered the rum instead of the vodka.”

Yvonne turned back around. “Ex-Director.”

“Yes.” The young man still didn’t look over. “Yvonne Hartman, Director of Torchwood, starting last night, at precisely twelve seconds to midnight. You hate the colour green and you eat jaffa cakes when you watch your soap operas. EastEnders is your favourite.”

Yvonne cleared her throat, blood rising to her face. “And you have never eaten a jaffa cake, nor have you a clue what either a soap opera or EastEnders is.”

The young man finally glanced at her, but she paid him no heed. She turned back to Phillips and the guard stationed at the platform.

“Leave us for now,” she told them.

The guard on the platform gave her a frown, but Phillips took him by the elbow and led him back out the sliding door.

“Ianto Jones,” Yvonne said, spinning back on a heel to face him.

He was standing in the centre of his room now, studying her as she finally took that step forward, sending a walkway that could fit three abreast out from the platform to connect to his box. She walked down it, the click of her steps echoing in the cavernous room.

When she stopped in front of her, his head tilted. “I thought you’d be…”

“Older?” Yvonne suggested. “Shorter? Wearing less clothes?”

“Blonder,” Ianto Jones finished. “Where’s Director Costa now?”

Yvonne raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were supposed to be omniscient.”

“I’m not,” Jones said. “Speaking of, what day is it? Mark’s a little off with his dates. The repeated retconning every night has him a few months off. Are we still in August?”

“It is the second of September 2003,” Yvonne said, smile returning to her face. “Happy belated birthday. Twenty’s a big age. Of course, you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

Jones’s face read only as impassive.

“Where’s Director Costa?” he asked again.

“The _ex_ -director is… elsewhere,” Yvonne said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Are you going to stop my supply of dark chocolate?” Jones asked, apropos of nothing.

“I didn’t know you were receiving any in the first place.”

“Things always change with each new director,” Jones said with a shrug. “I’m just wondering where I stand with you.”

Yvonne eyed the boy. “Yes, I’m finding myself curious about that as well.”

“Don’t shoot Mark,” Jones said. “He’s already liable to forget me. After all, as far as he knows, this is his first day on the job with me. And his long-term memory storage is… a little damaged.”

She smiled. “Why are you under the impression I’d shoot your guard?”

“And he tells great jokes, even if they are the same ones every day,” Jones continued. “‘What did the sea say to the beach?’”

“‘Nothing, it just waved,’” Yvonne answered. “That’s… quite old. And not all that funny.”

Jones shrugged. “How should I know?”

“You’re the omniscient one.”

“I’m not omniscient. I believe what’s written in my file is ‘psychic,’ and even that’s a bit of a sham.” Jones tilted his head to the other side. “He also has some pretty good riddles, too. ‘What is it that given one, you’ll either have two or none?’”

Yvonne actually had to pause and think about that one. Her initial reaction was “a stone,” but that didn’t make any sense. Neither did “a fishing pole,” to be honest.

“You see, I didn’t get it either, because I’ve never been given one in my life,” Jones said. “It’s supposed to be ‘a choice.’”

“Ah,” Yvonne said, raising an eyebrow. “I see.”

“You’ll have quite a few choices ahead, Director Hartman.”

“It’s Yvonne.”

“Don’t play with the Void. Don’t touch the sphere.”

She frowned at him. He stared stolidly back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded when he refused to say anything more.

“How should I know?” he repeated, placid and calm. “I’ve the commonplace intelligence of a six-year-old.”

“We both know that this is nothing commonplace,” Yvonne said, stepping closer to the forcefield. “You know something that pertains to Torchwood’s future. I need to know it, too.”

 _“Your_ future.”

“My future _is_ Torchwood’s future. And, really, Torchwood’s future is _Britain’s_ future. So,” she said. “What did you mean?”

“Don’t play with the Void,” Ianto Jones said simply. “Don’t touch the sphere.”

Then he went and laid back down on his bed, returning his stare to the ceiling. Yvonne seethed quietly, then turned and stormed out of the room.

“You,” she said to Mark the guard. “Come with me. I think it’s time you had a change in life, don’t you?”

“Ma’am?” Mark the guard asked.

“Yvonne,” she corrected with a saccharine smile. “I just think you deserve to get out of this—” she waved a dismissive hand to the corridor around her “—dungeon and have a more… _permanent_ place in the world.”

Mark the guard’s face brightened up. “I’d like that very much.”

“Good,” she said, smiling even wider.

Something hit the back of her hair, and she whirled around.

“What the—”

She snatched the offending object from right out of the air, looking down in shock at the dark chocolate candy in her hand. 

“Damn kid,” she swore.

“Ma—Yvonne?” Phillips asked.

“Let’s go,” she snapped to both of the guards, taking off again.

She heard the hiss of the false wall as it started to close behind her. She didn’t look back.

If she ever heard anyone say “knowledge is power” to her face ever again, she would send a heel through their foot. Power was power, and she was going to prove that, insolent twenty-year-olds be damned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote Yvonne before I'd listened to any TW1 audios, so anything wonky about characterisation stems from that.  
> Thank you for reading! Have a lovely day!


	2. Chapter 2

Captain Jack Harkness stepped over a body.

Then another.

And another.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He looked up. “Toshiko, how’re you doing?”

“Just trying not to think about it,” she replied, flashing him an empty smile

“Good, good.” He shined his torch around the room. “Okay. Looks like there’s nobody left alive in this room. That’s the last above-ground floor.”

“Down to the Archives?”

“Yep.” Jack tapped his earpiece. “Suzie?”

_“What?”_

“Woah,” Jack said at the snappy tone. “Something I said?”

 _“What do you want, Jack?”_ Suzie asked. _“I’m knee-deep in bodies, here. If you’re asking for a shag or a coffee run, now’s not exactly the time.”_

Jack sent a look to Toshiko, who wasn’t paying attention. She was staring at a severed head and looking like she wanted to gag. They all felt a little on edge.

“First of all, I have never asked you for a shag. Second, I do have a bit more respect for the dead than that.” His voice trailed deeper into sincerity by the second. “How are you doing?”

 _“Fine,”_ Suzie said tersely. _“I’m just fine.”_

“Okay. But I want you to know, it’s okay if you’re not, though. This is… this is heavy stuff.”

_“I know. Is there something you wanted?”_

“We’re heading down to the Archives,” he told her. “I want you down here with us.”

_“Got it.”_

Suzie’s voice disappeared from his ear instantly, and Jack turned his torch back to Toshiko.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jack asked her.

“Yeah,” she said, though a little airily. “Just fine.”

“What I said to Suzie applies to you, too. If you’re ever feeling like this is too much…”

“I’ll be okay,” Tosh assured him. “Let’s just… get this over with, shall we?”

Jack eyed her for a moment longer, then nodded. “Alright.”

He side-stepped over another mutilated carcass, careful not to land in the pool of blood slowly drying under it. This used to be a person. Now it was a jumble of innards and blood, wiring and metal. What a waste.

The bodies were fewer down the staircase, though there was still body parts, vomit, and blood to tiptoe around. Toshiko and Jack descended quietly, though there was little fear of disturbing the dead. It just didn’t feel right to speak in a place like this. What was there to say? Even a poet would find themself to be too disgusted and appalled to come up with any words worthy of being said. No, best not to say anything at all.

There was nothing but darkness in the Archives, which was a blessing.

“Power must’ve cut completely down here,” Jack said.

He pulled something from his pocket and tossed it to Tosh, who caught it with a fumbling catch.

“Here. Instant power source. Find a computer, plug that in, and get a complete inventory of what’s down here. We need to know what UNIT can’t get their grubby mitts on.”

“They’re not fighting us for this?” Tosh asked with a sweeping gesture of her torch to the shelves in front of them.

“Oh, they were,” Jack said. “But I already managed to convince them that this is Torchwood property, and therefore Torchwood’s business. They can have anything we don’t take for ourselves or send to Archie up in Glasgow.”

“So, anything useless is theirs?” Tosh asked.

Jack grimaced at how similar that sounded to Torchwood One’s motto. “Basically. But don’t tell them that.”

“Why? What’d you say to them?”

“I might have given them the impression they’re getting the bulk of the stuff down here. I just neglected to say it was going to be all the pointless space junk. They’re happy, and I’m still getting my stuff. Win-win.” Jack heaved a gusty sigh. “Right. Best get started. Once you have a list, I’ll look it over, then we all can get cracking on it.”

Tosh nodded, then disappeared behind a shelf as she began her search for a computer.

For the first few minutes alone, Jack stood there, shining his torch around the room at random. He sighed. Sometimes, he wished he understood twenty-first century computers more. Then he’d get to do the fun stuff, like Tosh did. Of course, nothing was very “fun” when standing under a massacre, but it was certainly preferable to standing still and doing nothing.

A shuffling noise just to the left caught Jack’s attention. He flashed his light that way, but he didn’t see anything.

“Tosh?” he asked.

The shuffling grew closer.

“Toshiko?” Jack asked again. “Is that you?”

Something pushed against the closest shelf, and Jack whipped out his Webley. He did feel a little foolish, pointing both a torch and a gun the way he was, but he couldn’t be too careful. Whatever this was, it wasn’t Toshiko.

“Whoever you are, show yourself,” Jack commanded.

“Don’t shoot me,” a wavering voice said. It was softly Welsh and completely terrified. No cybernetic static. “I don’t—I’m not… something’s wrong.”

Jack didn’t put his gun down. There was no way to be certain that this wasn’t a partially converted Cyberman. They’d found and put down a few of those upstairs.

“Can you come out, please?” Jack asked the voice. “I need to see you in order to help you.”

“My head…”

“Come on out, and I can check your head,” Jack said.

Whoever it was managed to push themself up, as evident by the rattle of the shelf. The shuffling started again, and Jack tucked the torch between his chin and his shoulder to get a better grip on his Webley.

A man emerged. A completely normal, totally human man.

“Don’t shoot me,” he begged again. “I’m not going to… oh, god…”

The man clutched his head. Jack quickly stowed his gun away, switching his torch back to his hand as he approached the man.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“He’s… too much,” the man said, pressing the heels of his palms tighter to his temples. “My _head_ …”

“Woah, woah!” Jack exclaimed as the man began to keel forward.

It was somewhat of an awkward tumble, but Jack managed to reach out and catch the man, capturing him close to his chest and helping him slide to the floor. Jack held his light up to illuminate his face better.

The man was… stunning, as Jack would later deem an appropriate term. Though it was a bit thrown by the unkempt and disturbed appearance. Dark hair tousled into disarray, clammy and pale skin that shone with sweat and some blood, piercing blue eyes that were screwed up in agony. The man’s breath was ragged from pain, which brought Jack back to reality.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Jack asked, checking for any large injury around the man’s head.

“Head,” the man groaned. “Hurts… too much…”

“Okay, where does it hurt? _How_ does it hurt?”

The man didn’t answer. Jack snapped his focus back to the man’s face. His eyes were staring at Jack, wider and wilder than they were moments before.

 _“You!”_ the man breathed.

Then he passed out.

“Hey, hey!” Jack shouted, tapping the man’s cheek. “Come on, I don’t know what’s wrong with you yet!”

Running footsteps had Jack pulling the torch up and back to the shelves, from which Toshiko emerged.

“Jack? I heard shouting. What’s—oh my god, is he okay?” Tosh asked, stopping short the moment she saw Jack and the man on the floor.

“I don’t know,” Jack said, just as the door to the stairs swung open behind them.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Suzie’s voice said. “I wasn’t _that_ excited to be rooting around the—”

“Suzie, go get some help,” Jack cut her off.

“Christ, Jack, what’d you do, shoot someone?” Suzie asked, coming to stand by him.

“Go get help!”

“Okay! Calm down. I’m going.”

She retreated back up the stairs as Jack reached a hand down and brushed a clump of hair away from a cut on the man’s forehead. There was a feeling deep in Jack’s gut that there was something not quite right about this.

* * *

Jack crossed another item off the list Toshiko had sent him. There was no need for a second Demurian spice rack to shove into the depths of their own Archives back in Cardiff. They didn’t need the first one, really, so a second would just become a waste. It’d be much more fun to shunt it off to UNIT and pretend it was some unknown artefact, then watch them struggle as they tried to figure out exactly what it did. And then laugh at them when they eventually learned it was a pointless tangle of metal.

He sighed and flipped to the next page. Such a long list; he still had two more pages to go, and he’d already been through... god, _lots_. How the hell had One managed to collect so many artefacts? Where had they got all this from? They didn’t have a Rift. Had they… had they _stolen_ these? There were a number of small non-human communities scattered around London, and Jack wouldn’t put it past any of the previous Torchwood directors…

A nurse walked by him and into the room across the hall. Jack quickly stuffed his papers away. Whatever else was on that list would just have to find a home in their Archives, because there were more important things on Jack’s mind now. The man occupying that room across the hall, for that matter.

The survivors of what was now being called “The Battle of Canary Wharf” had all been brought to the Royal London Hospital for treatment. Of the thirty-six, only twenty-nine remained, and it was estimated that the number would drop by at least two. It made Jack want to punch a wall every time he thought about that. A total of eight hundred and twenty-three people had worked for Torchwood London, and now only around three percent were expected to be alive by the end of the day. Four hundred and sixty-seven were reported dead, and the rest as missing. Plus two, of course.

Rose and Jackie Tyler.

Jack had to actively reminded himself he was not allowed to punch hospital walls.

Honestly, he wouldn’t be too concerned about the man in the room across the hall if it wasn’t for those two added names. Not to sound heartless, or anything, but Jack hadn’t been that interested in checking in on the survivors after he’d learned of Rose’s disappearance in the event. Then he’d been given a list to check over, as those in charge of the extraction thought he might be able to cross more people of the list. He wasn’t, because he’d never made acquaintances with anyone in Yvonne’s new brand of Torchwood, but he did try to check for any mentions of the Doctor. If Rose had been at Torchwood… well, there was only one good reason for that.

And he’d come across a discrepancy in the survivor list and the list of those known to have been caught in the battle. The man from the Archives was listed as “unknown” in the survivor list, and there wasn’t a single person that wasn’t already identified in the second list. That left only a few options: some random person had walked in and found themselves amongst the carnage and hid in the Archives (unlikely, considering Torchwood One’s security), he had been mislabelled when placed on the list (also unlikely; his face was in good condition, so _somebody_ should have been able to place him), or… well, or he was the Doctor.

That last one was also unlikely, considering the fact that the man had clearly been a human. A normal human, complete with a normal human heart, a normal human temperature, and normal human blood, from what Jack had found in the Archives. But the Doctor had once told Jack that there was a way to make Time Lords appear human. Some chameleon-thing. Jack didn’t know anything more about it than that, so there was no way to be certain this could be the outcome, but…

Hadn’t the man declared “you!” as he stared up at Jack? Jack had analysed that over and over again in his head to see if there was any recognition in that tone. He still couldn’t tell. Sometimes, he thought, yes, there definitely had been, but other times, he was certain his previous certainty was only due to wishful thinking. The more he thought about it, the more he was confused.

So, that was why Jack was waiting. When the nurses finally let Jack in to see him, Jack would ask him if he was the Doctor. If the answer was yes… Jack wasn’t thinking about that yet. Jack should let him say yes first before getting to excited, and all that. And if the answer was no, Jack would get his name and leave with a heavy-yet-understanding heart, then find someone to add the man’s name to the survivor list.

Jack looked up at the clock. It was getting to an appropriate time to eat. He sighed and supposed he could spare the moment to go grab a bite.

He came back with a packet of crisps from a vending machine, because he didn’t want to walk too far to get food. While the nurses were under strict order to find him if the man woke, he was tired, and didn’t feel like wandering around the hospital more than he needed.

Jack had just sat back down to open his crisps when a clattering noise and a loud shout came from the room.

He jumped up, discarding the bag of crisps as he strode across the hall, barging into the door.

“Holy sh—”

The man was struggling violently against the nurse, who was attempting to pin him back to the bed. The nurse kept telling him that she needed him to calm down, please, but the man didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes were unfocused and feral, and he let out another enraged yell as he tried to free himself.

The nurse looked over to Jack.

“Help me!” she shouted.

Jack jumped to it, helping her shove the man back into the bed. The nurse let go when Jack had his hands on the man, and she grabbed a syringe from the tray.

“Hold him still!” the nurse ordered Jack.

Jack did his best to pin the man back down, and the nurse grabbed the man’s arm and plunged the needle into it.

“There we go,” she said as the man’s struggling grew weaker and weaker beneath the nurse and Jack’s hands. “That’s better.”

Jack felt a small sense of déjà vu as the man’s eyes fluttered over to him, giving him that same look as he had in the Archives, and then closed as he passed out. Jack frowned and let the man go, stepping back and straightening his coat.

“Are you alright?” he asked the nurse.

“Clipped me on the nose,” she said, “which stings a little, but otherwise, I think I’m fine.”

“Good.” Jack glanced over at the man. “What happened?”

“He was out, then he woke up and he started screaming,” the nurse said.

“Screaming for someone?” Jack asked.

“No. He just looked at me… I’ve never seen anyone so terrified in my life,” the nurse said, face pulled into a troubled frown. “I’ve seen enough weird shit today with all these people you lot have brought in, but nobody’s ever been genuinely _scared_ of me before.”

Jack nodded, then thought of the Doctor. Would the Doctor be terrified of nurses? Medical equipment? Maybe if they were crude, twenty-first century ones…

“It’s probably just the trauma,” Jack said.

She shrugged, then cast a sidelong glance to the man in the bed.

“Now I have to redo his IV,” she sighed. “He ripped it out.”

“Don’t bother with it,” Jack said, eyeing the man himself.

“What? I have to—”

“No,” Jack cut over her. “I don’t think it’s safe to keep this man here for much longer. Too dangerous for the NHS.” And Jack was becoming far too curious to keep the man here any longer.

“Well, where’s he going to go, then?” the nurse asked, puzzled.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got a place.” He smiled to her. “Excuse me, I have a call to make.”

He pushed out of the room and back into the hallway, checking through his speed dial on his mobile. When he found the number he was looking for, he pressed it, and waited patiently for the other person to pick up. He cursed when he went to voicemail instead.

“Owen! I know I said it was your day off, but surprise, surprise! Torchwood sleeps for no man. Get up. I’ve got something I need you to check out. Well. Some _one_.”

* * *

“He should be in a hospital, Jack.”

“You said it yourself. Superficial burns, cuts, and bruises. He’ll be fine.”

“Still. He just lost most of his colleagues. Probably all his mates. I’m not equipped to deal with that.”

“I don’t think the others were much better off back there, anyway,” Jack said. “I don’t think UNIT’s willing to finance treatment of mental health.”

Owen hmphed. “Well, I still don’t like this.”

“That’s why I’m the boss.”

Owen grumbled something under his breath and settled further into his chair. Jack clasped his hands together and set them on the table, waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

“Okay, how much longer did you say he was going to be out for?” Jack asked, slumping forward.

“Not sure. But you’ll be able to tell when he’s waking up. Just be patient.”

“Can’t you like… read his heartrate and tell me how much longer, or something?”

“He’ll wake up when he wakes up. There’s not much more that I can say than that.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Or you could keep yammering on. That’d wake the _dead_ , knowing you and your gob.”

Jack glared at Owen. Owen looked pleased with himself.

Another four minutes slugged on before Jack felt every last cell in his body screaming with impatience. He sighed.

“Right, isn’t there some sort of stimul—”

Jack jumped as the man groaned. Owen instantly got to his feet, rounding the table to aid the man… somehow. Jack wasn’t entirely certain what Owen planned to do, really. He was mostly focused on watching the man wake himself up.

The man’s head bobbed up and down a few times, then slowly lifted as the man blinked his eyes open. He blinked a few times more, looking blearily at Jack, then turning to Owen, then back to Jack. Then frowned and looked down at his hands, cuffed on the table, and his body, still robed in the hospital gown, and began to panic. He let out a shout and started pulling at his hands and struggling in the chair, trying to free himself.

“No, no, nonononononono—"

“Woah, hey!” Jack said.

He reached out and grabbed one of the man’s hands, and instantly the man stopped struggling, gazing down at Jack’s hand in astonishment. The man’s eyes trailed from Jack’s hand up Jack’s arm and to Jack’s face, which he stared at with equal shock.

“What is it?” Jack asked, hoping for an answer for all those previous stares.

“Nothing,” the man said, sounding bewildered. “Absolutely… _nothing_.”

Jack frowned. Not the answer he was looking for.

“Where am I?” the man asked. “This isn’t…”

He shook his head and glanced around him, taking in the interrogation room. His eyes locked onto Owen, who he minutely shifted away from.

“You’re a doctor,” the man said.

“Yes,” Owen said. “That a problem?”

“What are you going to do to me?” Jack picked up the hints of apprehension and weariness in the man’s tone.

“We’re not going to do anything to you,” Jack said.

The man didn’t look like he believed that.

“We’re not,” Jack assured him. “We just have a few questions.”

That didn’t make the man relax at all. Owen sat back down next to Jack on the other side of the interrogation table, and Jack slid a piece of paper forward.

“This is a list of people still listed as missing,” Jack told the man as he took it in his cuffed hands. “Those who have not been reported as converted and sucked into the Void, half-converted, or dead. Which one of them are you?”

The man licked his lips. “I’m not on this.”

“Oh, come on, you haven’t even looked at it yet,” Owen said.

“No, you don’t understand,” the man said. His eyes met Jack’s. “I won’t be on any list.”

“Why’s that?” Jack asked.

“I’m…” The man struggled for his next word. “Classified.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. The man shifted in his seat and dropped his eyes to the table.

“Classified how?” Jack asked.

The man looked up again. “Look, I swear, I’m not—”

Jack silenced him. “Classified _how_?”

“I was…” The man grimaced slightly. “They locked me up.”

Beside Jack, Owen’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Jack felt much the same. _This_ was what the handcuffs were for: in case flying trays and syringes lead to… disaster.

“I promise, I’m not a criminal,” the man added quickly.

“And we’re to believe that because?” Owen asked.

“I-I don’t know.” The man glanced between Owen and Jack. “I don’t know how I can prove it. But I swear on… on my _life.”_

“That’s what you’re going to give your word on?” Owen scoffed. “Come on, I’ve heard more creative oaths than that.”

“It’s all I have,” the man said with a shrug. “And I swear on it. I’m not going to hurt you, or… or steal from you, or… anything else.”

Jack studied him for a moment. There was something honest in his eyes. Something that Jack wanted to believe.

“Then why did they lock you away?” Jack asked, leaning back on his chair.

The man’s lips tightened. Jack sat for a moment, waiting for an answer, then realised that one was not going to come. The man had just promised them their safety, and now expected them to do the same for him.

“We’re not going to hurt you, I swear,” Jack said, sitting up straight again. 

The man raised an eyebrow. “You’re Torchwood, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but we’re not Yvonne’s Torchwood,” Jack said. “We ignore certain charters.”

That didn’t seem to mean a thing to the man, and Jack’s hope that this was the Doctor was starting to fade.

“We just want a few answers,” Jack said. “Nothing more, nothing less. We won’t do anything but ask questions.”

The man’s brows furrowed slightly. Then he nodded to Owen.

“I’m going to need him to say that,” he said.

“What?” Owen asked. “Why?”

The man didn’t say anything, and it was clear that this would continue to be the case unless Owen complied. Jack didn’t know why the man needed this, but if it would give Jack his answers, then he needed Owen to do as he was told. He glared at Owen.

“Ugh, _fine_ ,” Owen grumbled. “We’re not Yvonne bloody Hartman and we’re not going to hurt you, and all that shit. Happy?”

The man eyed Owen impassively for a moment longer, then turned to Jack and gave a nod.

“I take it that means I’m free to ask what I want now?” Jack asked.

The man nodded once more.

“Are you the Doctor?”

The answer the man gave was not one that Jack wanted or expected. His face crumpled and his fists clenched.

“Too much,” he ground out.

“Too much… what?” Jack asked.

_“Everything.”_

Jack and Owen shared a glance. Neither of them knew what to make of that.

“Alright. If you aren’t the Doctor—” Jack paused as the man’s face contorted again “—are you an alien?”

“No,” the man said. His face relaxed, but only just. “I’m human.”

“If you aren’t the… well, you know, and if you’re not an alien or a criminal, then why are you classified and locked up?” Jack asked.

It might not have been where he wanted this interrogation to go (and he wouldn’t deny the slight disappointment and heavy-heartedness he now felt after learning this wasn’t the Doctor), but now they had a different problem on their hands. The man was still unknown and quite possibly a threat.

“Because…” The man looked at the two of them, then sighed. “Because of what I can do.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “And what is it that you can do?”

The man sighed again. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I… know things.”

“Oh, come on,” Owen sighed. “What kind of bullshit—”

“November fourth, 1999.”

Owen stared.

“And she never forgave you for it,” the man said. He sounded… remorseful. “Not even now.”

“How the _fuck_ —”

The man tilted his head. “You named your cat Ronald?”

Owen avoided Jack’s curious glance, a blush forming on his face. “I was five!”

“And you wanted another dog,” the man said, amused.

“You’re telepathic,” Jack said.

The man glanced at him. “Yes… and no. It’s not telepathy, not really. I mean, it is, only… it isn’t.”

“Quit talking shit and tell us what it is, then,” Owen growled. Jack shot him a glare and he deflated. But only a little.

“Well, see, it’s like this,” the man said. “I _know_ things. Sometimes, I know what people are thinking. Sometimes, I know all their secrets. Sometimes, I know things from their past. Sometimes, their future. Sometimes, I know things from pasts of people before them, and the futures of people beyond them.” The man sighed. “And it’s not just people, always. I just… _know things_. But only if they want to be known.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s not something that I can control.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not for lack of trying, believe me.” The man shrugged. “I’ve tried to master it. For all my life in Torchwood. But it’s not _like_ that. In a sense, I don’t use it. It uses me.”

He looked up at Jack.

“Like you,” he said. “I can’t get a single thing from you. It’s like—it’s like you’re not even there.”

Jack blinked. “And that’s…”

“That’s good!” the man said quickly. His lips twitched up in a ghost of a smile. “It’s… peaceful. Quiet. I’ve never had quiet before. It’s nice.”

“Before you passed out. In the Archives. Was that why you were—” Jack made a gesture, because he had no idea what he meant to say.

“It was so _loud_. Everyone was in pain and their lives were ending and it was all in my head. And that man. He was… too much. So full of time and space and _everything_.”

“The Doctor?”

The man winced again, then nodded.

“And then you came along, and it was like my brain just—"

“Short-circuited?” Owen suggested when the man trailed off.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Are we sure he’s not an alien?” Owen muttered to Jack.

“I’m not,” the man said, scowling.

Owen’s pocket started buzzing. Owen cursed at it, but their guest jumped at the sound of it.

“Relax,” Owen said. “It’s just my mobile.”

He shook his head as he fished it out of his pocket. Jack watched the man also watch Owen, his eyes wide in either shock, fear, or intrigue. Jack couldn’t tell which. Maybe it was all three.

“What do you want?” Owen asked whoever it was on the other end, and the man’s eyes somehow managed to go wider. “Yeah, well, Jack called me in. I dunno, we’ve got some weirdo over here that Jack brought home with him. No. And if he did, Jack can clean up his mess.”

Then Owen stuffed his mobile back in his pocket and glared at Jack.

“Suzie’s done,” he said. “They’re turning in for the night. Am I allowed to go now?”

“We’re not finished,” Jack said, nodding his head to the man.

“Jack. It’s nearing midnight. If you want me up and rearing to catch your Weevils tomorrow, I’m going home.”

Jack looked between the man and Owen. They still didn’t have much on the man. Not even his _name_. Though that might have been Owen’s point. Jack was so weary from the day’s events that he hadn’t even bothered to ask for a name.

He sighed. “Fine. Go.”

Owen left almost instantly after that. Jack wondered if there had been someone that he’d called Owen away from. If that was the case, Jack doubted they’d still be around. Which meant Owen would be cranky as all hell tomorrow. Whatever. Jack could deal with cranky.

Jack sighed again and turned back to the man, who was now watching him apprehensively.

“Come on,” Jack said.

He grabbed the man’s arm, both to help him stand and to start leading him up the stairs of the interrogation room to the main Hub. He contemplated living situations for a moment, then decided the man’s night should be spent in the cells. Jack still didn’t know much about the man; there was no telling if he was still a threat or not.

Jack was leading him down the steps to the cells when Jack realised something was off. It took him a second to place the odd feeling, but then realised… there had been no _moment_. Every last scumbag and thief and suspect Jack had ever dragged through the Hub had made at least one comment on the Hub’s appearance, whether that be a shocked gasp, a disdainful snort, or a remark on the décor. This man had said nothing. Jack looked over at the man and then noticed that the man’s head was hung low, staring at the floor.

Jack didn’t know what to make of that.

“In you go,” Jack said, gently shoving him into the first cell.

The man stumbled in, finally looking back up. He glanced around his surroundings, then turned back to Jack. The look man’s face baffled Jack again; usually, people were more object to spending time in a cell. This man just looked resigned.

Jack hated that.

“Stay here,” Jack said, rather needlessly.

Then he took off for his bunker, because damn it, the very least he could do was give the man a blanket and pillow to keep him warm at night. Hospital gowns weren’t very insulating, and neither were the cells.

When Jack returned, the man was still in the exact same spot that Jack had told him to stay in, wearing the same face and maintaining that same acquiescent air. Jack reopened the cell and shoved the blanket and pillow at him.

“Here.”

The man stared at them for a moment, then held out his cuffed hands and took one object in each. Jack cursed himself mentally, blaming the fatigue once more, and reached into his pocket for the key.

“Let me take off the handcuffs,” Jack said.

The man frowned. Jack rolled his eyes and held up a wrist, tapping it demonstratively.

“You don’t have to sleep in them,” Jack said.

The man looked down at his own cuffed wrists, then flung the blanket and pillow at the raised slab on the side of the cell. He raised his hands to Jack.

“I’m Captain Jack Harkness,” Jack told him as the cuffs clicked open. “You are?”

“Jones.”

Jack’s eyebrows flicked up. “Just Jones, or…”

“Ianto Jones.”

Jack studied the man, this Ianto Jones. He was still pale, his eyes were still piercing blue, his hair still dark and tousled. And, now that Jack was really looking, there was also a fairly handsome bone structure in the man’s face, and an almost button-like nose.

But there was more to the man than just an attractive face. Jack never once believed that stupid “the eyes are the window to the soul” shit, but there was something behind the ones gazing back at him. Something deep and profound. Jack couldn’t place it. And that frightened him, for some reason.

He shook himself mentally.

“Goodnight,” he said.

Then Jack left Ianto Jones to go stand on the rooftop of the Millennium Centre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!


	3. Chapter 3

Suzie leaned on Toshiko’s chair. “So, he’s a weirdo that knows everything about everyone?”

“Not everything,” Jack said.

Owen said, “Not everyone.”

The two of them threw each other respectively annoyed and smug looks.

“What’s his name again?” Toshiko asked.

“Ianto Jones.” Jack squinted at her screen. He honestly had no idea what she was doing. “Want me to go get him?”

“Yes. He might know things that could help me.”

“Ah, smart,” Owen said. “Already exploiting the man.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Tosh said. “I just thought maybe he could give me things like his birthdate, and stuff.”

“Will that help?” Suzie asked.

Tosh shrugged. “It might. Besides. I want to meet him, too.”

“Might just tell you when you’re finally going to get laid,” Owen said.

Tosh’s lips pressed together, but she kept typing at her keyboard instead of responding.

“Is that wishful thinking on your part, Owen?” Suzie asked.

Jack left before the bickering started in earnest. When Suzie and Owen got going, they were… terrifying. Nightmares to deal with.

With a moment of consideration, Jack stopped and picked up the handcuffs on the way. Just because the man had _seemed_ almost innocent and artless, there was no telling if he actually _was_. For all Jack knew, this was all just a game to the man. It wasn’t completely impossible to con a conman.

What Jack found in the cells was not at all what he was expecting.

Most prisoners were either furious or anxious wrecks. They fumed at the cell walls and pounded on the window, or they sat in the corner, looked scared, and cried. Sometimes it was a mixture of select actions, or even once, all of them.

But never had anyone sat serenely in the centre of the floor, looking like he had not a care in the world.

Ianto Jones looked up Jack came to a halt in front of the window, but he didn’t beg or demand to be set free. He just peered up at Jack, an eyebrow arching slightly as his bright blue gaze cut through the perspex. It was unnerving in a way Jack couldn’t define.

“Good morning,” Ianto Jones said.

Jack scowled slightly.

“Good morning,” he replied, a little reproachfully.

Ianto Jones stood up. Jack took a moment to take in the height and lankiness of the man. And then took another moment to deliberate the variance between “lanky” and “underweight.” He didn’t really know the difference when it came to this Ianto Jones.

“There’s more people here,” the man said. “I could tell. Before you walked down here.”

“Would you like to meet them?”

“Do I have a choice?” Ianto Jones asked.

“No.”

Ianto Jones shrugged, seeming as if this was the answer he’d already expected. Jack smiled slightly. Observant kid.

Then Jack resumed his scowl, because there wasn’t any way he was allowed to feel any emotions for the man until they knew more about him.

“Right,” Jack said. “Step away from the glass.”

Ianto Jones did so with no protest, and Jack used his vortex manipulator to open up the cell. The other man waited patiently as Jack handcuffed him again, eyeing the cuffs with intrigue not usually found in a prisoner.

Suzie and Owen were certainly going at it when Jack returned with Ianto Jones. Every second word out of their mouths was a bite at the other, a dig at their appearance or their sexual prowess or some other such petty subject. Toshiko cut them both off with an exaggerated cough when she caught sight of the two men, and Owen and Suzie’s mouths zipped closed instantly. Metaphorically speaking, anyway.

“So, this is him,” Suzie said, tilting her head slightly. “Taller than I expected.”

“Not really,” Ianto Jones said. “I’m just about the height you imagined.”

Suzie blinked, then turned to Owen.

“I thought you’d been exaggerating again,” she said.

“What, you think I’d lie about this?” Owen glared at her. “’Scuse you, but I’m _not_ a liar.”

Suzie opened her mouth, but Toshiko nudged her lightly with an elbow from her seat. Suzie glared down at her, but she had already returned her gaze to Ianto Jones.

“We’re trying to find your records,” she told him, “but we’re not finding anything.”

“You won’t.”

Toshiko frowned. “Why not?”

“It’s top secret,” Ianto Jones said, sounding almost a touch… remorseful? “ _I’m_ top secret. I won’t be in your Archives.”

“That’s why I’m hacking their mainframe,” she explained, gesturing to her computers. “So I can find it.”

A very blank look passed over his face. He stared and blinked at her setup of monitors.

“What are those?” he asked after a moment.

Owen scoffed. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Ianto Jones shook his head, a frown settling on his face.

“Those are bloody _computers_ , mate.” Owen looked to Jack. “Are you sure he’s a human?”

“I _am_ ,” Ianto Jones insisted once more.

Jack glared at Owen, then glanced over to Tosh. She was gaping at the man for a good moment, though when she caught Jack’s stare she returned to her screens.

“Listen, Ianto,” she said. She glanced over the rim of her glasses. “Can I call you Ianto?”

Ianto nodded.

“I just need a few small bits of information that could help me,” she said, “and then I’ll have your files, and we’ll be done here.”

Jack was just about to open his mouth to protest that last statement, but Ianto was shaking his head again.

“You won’t find it,” he said. “It’s a paper file. From Hartman’s office.”

Suzie groaned and Jack bit back a sigh that held the same sentiment. Yvonne’s office had been ravaged and burned. No paper would have survived that.

“Unless a computer can get that,” Ianto added.

“A computer can’t retrieve a physical file,” Toshiko said after a few moments of puzzled staring. “If that’s what you meant.”

“Oh. It’s just…” Ianto frowned. “Never mind.”

He continued frowning at the array of computers.

“Weren’t they bigger, though?” he asked abruptly. “Computers, I mean.”

“Yeah, in the _eighties_ ,” Owen said, tone full of scorn. “Jesus. You’re really not human, are you?”

“I keep telling you, I _am_ ,” Ianto snapped.

“Yeah? And how are you going to prove that?” Owen demanded. He rounded on Jack. “There’s no way this guy’s human. What kind of human can do that?”

Ianto was about to bite back at Owen again, but Jack raised a hand. He silenced instantly, suddenly intent on studying the floor. Jack turned back to Owen.

“What are you saying?” Jack asked him.

“If we don’t have his files,” Owen said, “then the only way we know for sure is to run tests.”

Jack was going to roll his eyes (Owen was always too gung-ho about his tests), but a movement from his left caught his attention first.

Ianto’s head had shot right back up, and he was now staring intently at Owen, another blank expression adorning his face. This one was different from the last one; where that one looked like a computer processing information, this one looked like the absolute failure to process it. Jack frowned at him, but his eyes didn’t leave Owen even for a second.

“Fine,” Jack said. “But a quick scan with the Bekaran scanner.”

Owen immediately started to protest. “But—”

“Suzie, can you get out a deck of cards?” Jack cut over him.

“Oh my god,” she moaned. “You can’t be serious.”

“As much as it pains me to admit, Owen’s right,” Jack said. Owen hmphed. “We’ve got no records, and no idea what he is. I just want to know what we’re dealing with.”

Owen, grumbling to himself, snagged Ianto by the arm and dragged him toward the autopsy bay. Ianto trailed after him in a way that resembled one of those toys children dragged behind them as they toddle about. Lifeless and obedient to the whims of a madman. Suzie, also mumbling darkly under her breath, stalked off to find what she usually referred to as the “telepathy cards.”

Jack stood where he was for a moment, trying to think everything through. Something felt strange. Off, somehow. He glanced over to Toshiko, and her face mirrored his thoughts perfectly.

“I guess my services are not needed after all,” she said after a few tense seconds.

“Close it down and get back to identifying tech,” Jack instructed.

She nodded and turned back to her screens.

Jack mentally twiddled his thumbs for a moment. The problem with being leader was that sometimes his only job was to dish out other jobs to other people. He sighed quietly, then took off after Owen and his newest specimen.

Owen had set Ianto onto the autopsy table while he rooted around his disorganised and scattered desktops and drawers for the Bekaran deep tissue scanner. Ianto was watching him, sitting so rigidly that a baseball bat probably couldn’t even bludgeon him out of shape. Neither of them noticed Jack, and he slipped around to the back of the room, directly behind Ianto so he could watch down from on high.

“Okay, lie down,” Owen ordered Ianto when he’d finally found his scanner.

Ianto obediently laid back, stretching his long, slim body across the table. Jack noted for a moment that they’d need to get him into something other than the hospital gown soon, then realised with a jolt that Ianto’s eyes were locked onto his own. They stared at each other momentarily, Jack confused by the hardness of the other man’s eyes as they bored holes right through his skull. Then Owen turned on the scanner and Ianto’s eyes closed instantly, as if bracing himself.

When Owen had run roughly three and a half passes over him with the scanner, he stopped and told Ianto to sit back up. Ianto blinked his eyes open, a scowl forming on his face.

“That’s it?” he asked hesitantly.

“What do you mean ‘that’s it?’” Owen asked. “It’s a bloody scanner, of course that’s it!”

“I just thought…”

Instead of finishing relating what he just thought, he sat up slowly, spine unfurling vertebra by vertebra as he surveyed Owen.

“So?” he asked. “Convinced I’m human yet?”

Owen glowered at him.

“It takes a moment on these settings,” he growled.

Ianto folded his hands in his lap and watched Owen putter with the scanner. Jack watched, too, waiting in anticipation he hadn’t realised he had before now.

It wasn’t long before Owen dropped the scanner onto the table with a frustrated sweep. The tension in Jack’s shoulders relaxed. He’d seen that face before. Owen was never happy to be wrong, especially not when he was told he was going to be in the first place.

“Human,” Owen admitted with what Jack could tell was a great amount of pain.

“I told you,” Ianto said, not entirely vindictively. Though not without a fair share of it, mind. “Are you going to start believing me now?”

“Not yet,” Jack said.

Ianto turned, glancing up at him with his piercing gaze. There was something soft and humbling about his gaze, too, but that could just be whatever psychic mumbo-jumbo that dwelt in him.

Jack cleared his throat. “Few more tests to run.”

Something shifted about Ianto’s eyes; they lost their soft, piercing quality, hardening around the edges and flattening the stare.

“What for?” he asked.

“See if everything else you say is true,” Jack said. “Test out these so-called powers.”

“I thought I proved it to you last night,” Ianto said.

“And we need to be certain.”

Owen scowled. “And make sure you were telling us everything.”

Ianto looked away from them, down to the floor. He stared there for a few moments. Jack could only wonder what was going on inside his head.

“I thought you said you weren’t like that Torchwood.”

His voice was so quiet Jack barely heard it, and the sentence bounced around his skull for a bit before he processed it. When it filed away in the right part of his brain, he straightened up, frowning down at Ianto.

“We’re _not_ ,” he said.

Ianto glanced up at him, then back down to the floor. He said nothing.

“Come on, then,” Owen said, waving an irritated hand in a shooing-motion at Ianto. “Off. I’ll get you back here later for more.”

Ianto slid down from the autopsy table, his feet hitting the floor so softly for someone so ridgid. Owen didn’t wait a moment longer before he began leading Ianto off again, and Ianto fell into place behind him much as he had before. Jack frowned, but stepped in line behind them the moment they ascended the stairs.

Suzie was in Toshiko’s chair when they returned to the main sector of the Hub. She had also pulled over Owen’s chair, situating it across from her. Toshiko herself stood, arms folded and leaning against her desk, her face placid as she watched Suzie loosely shuffle the cards in her hands. They both looked up when the three men joined them; Tosh stood up straight and regained a studious look while Suzie sighed and toed the chair in front of her, sending it out a little further as a gesture for Ianto to sit.

Ianto did not sit. He instead observed the chair twist and roll with an odd look. Curiosity, Jack would say. Though why a desk chair was such a curiosity to elicit that expression, he couldn’t grasp.

“Okay, the sooner you sit down and let me start, the sooner this is finished,” Suzie said.

Ianto nodded once, then took hold of the back of the still slightly turning chair. He sat down, another odd look crossing his face for a moment as he stared at his lap. Then he blinked and the look was gone, replaced by that blank one from before as he turned his face back up to Suzie.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

Suzie held up the deck in her hands.

“Cards,” he said, scepticism evident in his tone.

“Yes, cards,” she replied impatiently.

“What kind of test _is_ this?”

“One to figure out what the hell your brain can do to us,” she said. “Now, are you going to let me start, or what?”

Ianto opened his mouth to say something more, but evidently decided against it and shut his mouth.

“Okay. I hold up a card,” Suzie said, demonstrating with a flourish, facing the card to herself. “Your job is to tell me what’s on the other side of it.”

“It’s not like—”

“Sooner we start, sooner we finish,” she reiterated. “Just let me get back to my job, please?”

“I—yeah. Fine,” he said, though he still looked troubled.

“Great.”

Suzie flung the demonstrative card sideways to the direction of the coffee table, and it skimmed across the barest hint of surface exposed from pizza boxes and takeaway cartons, then slid under the old, battered sofa. Suzie was not bothered by this in the slightest. She drew her next card and held the back up to Ianto, barely glancing at the face before sighing and turning her unimpressed, arched eyebrow to Ianto. Ianto just frowned.

“ _Well_?” she barked after a minute of silence ticked by.

“Red,” Ianto said.

Suzie stared at him for a moment. Her eyes slid to the card, then back to Ianto, a scowl forming on her face.

“It’s a bloody square,” she said.

“It’s got red on it somewhere.”

“Yeah, it’s _outlined_ in red,” she said.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, sending the card flying off toward the sofa again.

“This time,” she said as she drew another card, “focus on the bigger picture.”

Ianto appeared to want to say something again, but once more chose to refrain. He settled in on his chair, looking startled when the thing swayed sideways. He only refocused on the task at hand when Suzie cleared her throat loudly.

“It smells… old,” Ianto said after another pause.

“You can smell it all the way over there?”

“No,” he said bluntly.

Suzie held the card to her nose and took a quick sniff.

“Alright,” she said after a moment. “But what’s _on it_?”

“A stain.”

Suzie craned her neck around to glance at the back of the card. Jack found himself leaning forward a little to do the same, trying to see if what Ianto was claiming to know was something actually visible to him. Jack saw no stain.

“It’s a speck of coffee,” Suzie said when she looked again at the face of the card. “A tiny little spot.”

“Well,” Ianto said. “It is on the card.”

Suzie sighed. “I thought I said _bigger_ picture, not smaller than a pea. It was a circle.”

Ianto didn’t even attempt a look this time, though Jack could tell there was still something he wanted to say.

Suzie held another card aloft, and Ianto studied the back.

“It was left at the bottom of the pile for too long,” he said.

“For god’s sake,” Suzie snapped. “How the hell am I even supposed to tell if that’s right?”

“It _is_ ,” he told her.

“Can’t you just say the shape on the bloody card?” Owen asked.

“I told you yesterday,” Ianto said, a small flash of anger in his tone and on his face, “it doesn’t work like that. I can’t pick what I want to know. It just… tells me what it needs me to know.”

Owen was silent for a moment, calculating his response.

“Well, excuse me,” he said when he’d formulated one. “But it was rather late, and I was rather tired, and it was supposed to be my day off. I’m not going to remember that you’ve not got fucking control over yourself.”

“It’s not like that,” Ianto ground through his teeth again. “It can’t be controlled, I _told_ you!”

“Okay, woah,” Jack said, stepping between the two men. “Let’s focus on the important thing here. If you don’t know which shape’s on the card, what do you know?”

“I know that they’re forty-two years old,” Ianto said. “From... Nottingham. They’ve only been used four times, because everyone prefers the other deck from Reading. Or the one from Leeds. The last person they were used on was named… Tim?”

Jack was suddenly reminded of Tim, a psychic humanoid fish not unlike that of the infamous Blowfish species. That wasn’t exactly something he wanted to remember, not when it ended in blue guts adorning the walls.

“That was on the ninth of April. And you’re never going to find the red square card again,” Ianto finished.

He glanced up, first at Suzie, then at Jack.

“That’s all I know,” he said, somewhat pointlessly.

There was a short pause.

“There’s no way to verify that,” Toshiko said. She sounded apologetic, and her face was kind when Jack looked over to her.

Jack didn’t have the backbone to correct her; there was no way she could know that he was hanging around here forty-two years ago, placing a special order to a friend at Breedon Press Ltd (he’d liked that they advertised men’s underwear), twenty-one years ago, picking up the fresher deck in the box of “telepathy cards” (which was growing for no true reason), or seven years ago, acting as interrogator to a blue fish-man (which he would always minorly regret).

At any rate, Ianto sighed, and said, “Blue rhombus, fifteen down.”

Suzie instantly began tossing cards aside, scattering them far and wide as she counted down to the right card. She paused minutely when she reached it, then flipped it over with a _snap_. Jack felt his eyebrows raise as he saw the blue rhomboid symbol printed on the surface.

“I thought I proved it all yesterday,” Ianto sighed, leaning back in his chair.

He shot back up instantly as the momentum propelled him gently backwards. Jack spent two seconds trying to figure out exactly what this kid’s problem was, then shook his head.

“We had to be sure,” Jack said. “You’ve no idea the number of false positives we get with psychic tests.”

“Forty-seven percent.”

Jack frowned. “I thought you said you couldn’t read me.”

“And I’m surprised you paid any attention,” Ianto said coolly.

A moment passed and his expression turned to an abashed one, and he quickly dropped his gaze from Jack, nodding to Toshiko.

“It came from her,” he said, gesturing with both cuffed hands. 

“Oh,” Tosh said.

She seemed halfway between pleased, disconcerted, and thoughtful. Jack thought there were no better words than that to describe Toshiko when she was confronted with a puzzle she had yet to solve.

“So, you’ve got… sporadic, selective telepathy?” she asked, pushing in front of Suzie.

“They never said ‘telepathy,’” Ianto said.

“Clairvoyance, then?”

Ianto shook his head.

“They didn’t really just label it ‘psychic powers’ and call it good, did they?” She sounded slightly appalled.

Ianto shrugged.

“It’s what encompasses everything best, I suppose,” he said.

“Everything?” Owen demanded. “You mean there’s more?”

Ianto tensed up.

“Relax,” Suzie said, rolling her eyes. “We’re not giving you the third degree.”

Ianto eyed her strangely, and then did the same to Jack.

“Just show us,” Owen said. “Whatever it bloody is.”

“It… doesn’t work like that.”

Suzie sighed. “Seems like that’s a reoccurring theme…”

Ianto ignored her. He started looking around the Hub, scrutinising every inch of it. What for, Jack didn’t know. He kept searching, high and low, until he spotted something on Toshiko’s desk.

“Is that paper?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tosh said sceptically. “Why?”

“Can I have it?”

She turned and grabbed a leaf, inspecting it first—possibly to see if it was worth anything to her—then handed it to Suzie, who passed it to Ianto.

Ianto took and held it in front of him for a second, somewhat awkwardly with the handcuffs. The look on his face was the closest Jack had seen to a smile, the corners of his lips twitching upward and the guarded look in his eyes halfway gone.

“They never let me have paper,” he said, beginning to fold it.

Suzie frowned. “What would you need paper for?”

Ianto shrugged, continuing his folding. Jack thought origami for a moment, then realised the paper wasn’t square. Then he assumed it was the Reclusian version of origami, but the folds didn’t look quite right. He was not at all expecting for the end result to be a paper aeroplane.

“Okay, that’s not a superpower,” Owen said. “Anyone can do that.”

Ianto ignored Owen. He raised the plane up in front of him, as if he were about to begin a gentle throw, but instead of sending it flying, he simply let go.

The paper plane stayed in the air.

“What the _fuck_?” Owen asked.

Ianto smiled full on then. He blew gently, setting the plane off to a lazy start. It drifted onwards, first straight toward Suzie, then looping around Toshiko and roaming past Owen. When Owen batted it away, it diverged from its course and flew past Jack. Jack watched it, then looked over to Ianto, who was trailing his eyes along the path of the plane. Whether he was controlling it with his stare or merely following it along, Jack didn’t know.

“It only works when I’m in a good mood,” Ianto said quietly, as if hushed tones were needed when one was flying a paper aeroplane with their mind.

“And you’re in a good mood now?” Tosh asked.

“They never let me have paper,” Ianto repeated.

Owen raised an eyebrow. “What’s so special about paper aeroplanes?”

Ianto kept his eyes on his plane, the soft smile still in place on his lips as it glided through the air. It flew one more arch around the desks, then came to a halt in front of him.

“I was the best at paper aeroplanes,” he said, sounding proud. “Better than anyone in my class. I could make them go so far. Everyone else’s planes dropped right away, but not mine.”

A suspicious feeling tugged at Jack’s chest just then. He caught Owen’s eye. They shared a long glance, then Jack turned back to Ianto.

“Ianto?”

Ianto glanced up at him. The plane dropped from the air.

“Just how long were you with Torchwood London?”

Ianto looked away again, down to his lap where the paper plane now resided. His fingers fiddled with it, flicking at a corner of the wing.

“It’s… May?” he asked.

“Late May,” Jack amended.

He sighed and his fingers dropped the wingtip of the plane.

“Almost eighteen years,” he said.

A beat of silence passed.

“Shit,” Suzie said, and Toshiko placed a hand over her mouth and looked away. Owen muttered something even more profane under his breath.

Wordlessly, Jack pulled a key out of his pockets and stepped forward. Ianto trailed along with wide eyes as Jack knelt down in front of him.

“What are you doing?”

Jack said nothing, uncuffing Ianto’s slowly and deliberately.

“I thought you were going to be like them.”

Jack glanced up sharply, catching Ianto’s solemn blue gaze.

“Never,” Jack promised. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a great day!


	4. Chapter 4

Jack gasped back to life just as Suzie shot a whole clip into the Weevil.

“Ugh,” he said when he’d caught his breath. The Weevil’s dying groans reflected just how he felt.

Suzie’s face swam above him as she leaned over, peering at him.

“You alright to move?”

“Just give me… a second…” Jack said, blinking until there was just one of her standing over him.

When his vision returned to normal, he took her proffered hand and stood. He tilted his neck this way and that way, making sure all his bones were in their rightful place. Never get smashed repeatedly into a wall—it always ended badly.

“Thought you were a goner there for sure,” Suzie said. For some reason, she sounded mildly interested. 

“Nope,” he lied. “Just passed out.”

“What’s my name?”

“Suzie Costello.”

“Your name?”

He grinned, then saluted. “Cap’n Jack Harkness.”

“Yeah, you don’t have a concussion,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Now help me pick up this bastard.”

“Is that what we’re calling this one?” he asked as he crouched to help her. “‘Bastard?’”

“I didn’t think we named the dead ones.”

He shrugged, then on his count, they hoisted the Weevil up between them, quietly shuffling it to the SUV as quickly as quietly as possible. Jack hated it when the Rift dropped Weevils off in broad daylight; normally Weevils only came out at night and therefore were less of a pain to hide from the general public.

“You sure you’re alright?” Suzie asked as Jack sat down to drive.

“Absolutely.”

Suzie hmphed. “Well. It’s not as if you could drive any worse than you already do if you weren’t.”

“Hey,” Jack said defensively. “I can drive.”

Suzie raised an eyebrow.

“I can,” Jack muttered, mostly to himself as he started the SUV.

Fifteen minutes later, they were dragging the Weevil again, this time out of the back of the SUV and through a tunnel to the incinerator. Jack could hear Suzie muttering under her breath just _exactly_ what she thought about this. They left the Weevil on the slab next to the incinerator for Owen to deal with later. He always got cranky if he didn’t get the chance to look over a Weevil. Well, crankier than usual.

Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and followed Suzie the rest of the way to the main Hub.

It was quiet up there. Owen was squirrelled away in the autopsy room somewhere. Toshiko was sitting at her desk. Jack startled for a moment when he saw Ianto Jones standing behind her. Somehow, he’d forgotten about their newcomer in the headrush that was Weevil-catching.

Ianto was dressed in a plain white t-shirt that only highlighted how pale and scrawny he was, and his hands were shoved into the pockets of a pair of jeans that looked too short on him. Jack was pretty sure those were some of his shoes on Ianto’s feet. Ianto’s hair was wet and curled slightly, and it caught the light as he bent over Toshiko’s shoulder to study the computers curiously.

He straightened up again when Jack ascended the stairs.

“Whose are those?” Jack asked.

“Owen’s,” Toshiko said, not looking up from her screens. “And your shoes, but you never wear them.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “What’d you have to do to get Owen to share his spare clothes?”

“Oh, you know.” She shrugged. “I said I’d take his overtime shifts this week.”

Ianto frowned.

“That’s when you stay in late to work, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Toshiko said.

Ianto blinked, then looked down at the ill-fitting clothes.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he murmured.

“No, it’s okay,” Tosh said. At his look, she added, “Really. I’d rather be here than at home, anyway, so I don’t mind.”

Sometimes, Jack worried about how obsessed they all were with their jobs. Even Owen was hard to tear away from the autopsy bay if he’d found something interesting hidden inside a body. Then again, Torchwood functioned on everyone being oddly obsessed, so he couldn’t complain all too much.

“What are we doing?” Jack asked, moving to stand behind Ianto.

He placed his hand on Ianto’s shoulder, as a friendly gesture, but Ianto jumped. Ianto’s eyes went to the hand suspended in mid-air where his shoulder used to be. Jack dropped it back to his side, and Ianto’s eyes followed, until they snapped forward again, still wide.

Jack wasn’t shocked by this. After being locked up for eighteen years with next to no touch, and any touch being bad touch (if Jack’s suspicions were correct), there was no reason Ianto shouldn’t be averse to it. Plus, whatever he said about Jack last night could add to it. Jack was a void. He was nothing.

What a surprise, Jack could only think to himself.

“We’re looking up Ianto’s family,” Toshiko said, heedless to the happenings behind her.

“Have you gotten anywhere?”

“Not yet—we haven’t started,” she explained, “and we’re having troubles again because Owen’s porn messed with the systems again. I’ll have to fix a couple things before I do anything. But it’ll just be a few more minutes.”

“What’s porn?” Ianto asked.

Jack nearly choked on air. Toshiko actually turned away from her screens to face Ianto, gave him an odd look, and then turned back around to continue working.

They stood in silence, neither Jack nor Ianto daring to move an inch (likely for two very different reasons) before Tosh made a pleased “ah!” and spun her chair around again.

“Now,” she said, “who did you want to look for, again?”

“My parents,” Ianto said. “And my sister.”

Toshiko gave a tight smile.

“Names?”

“Alun Jones, Glenda Jones,” he said. “Rhiannon Jones.”

“Okay,” Tosh said, returning to her keyboard. “I can do that. Give me another minute.”

Then she set off to work again.

Jack found himself leaning over her shoulder, much like he always did when he watched her work. And, much like _she_ always did in such circumstances, she tutted whenever she thought he was hovering or bothersome. He noticed, though, that Ianto did not get tutted at. Not even when he stuck a finger out to poke at a key. She just stopped and let him touch it.

“Oh,” Ianto said, now stroking his finger over the key. “It’s smoother than I thought.”

He then looked abashed and stepped back again, watching Tosh from a distance as she resumed her work. Jack considered him and his detached posture for a moment but was brought back to the task at hand when Tosh sat back.

“What is it?” Ianto asked after a pause, leaning over Toshiko’s shoulder again.

Jack was already seeing it for himself, and he pursed his lips as Tosh read the screen aloud.

“Alun C. Jones, deceased,” she said. “Age fifty-two, on the fifteenth of August, four years ago.”

Jack watched Ianto’s face. It betrayed nothing.

“Glenda M. Jones, deceased,” Tosh continued. “Age fifty-three, on twelfth of February.”

She pressed her lips together for a second.

“Last year,” she muttered.

She and Jack both looked at Ianto, who had his blank face back on. He didn’t even blink, for a moment there.

“Rhiannon?” he asked after a very long, very tense minute.

“Sorry,” Toshiko said. “But there’s… nothing.”

“Nothing?” he repeated back tonelessly.

“Searches showed nothing on a Rhiannon Jones,” she said. “Not one that could be sister to someone your age.”

“And… what does that mean?”

“Well.” Tosh took a moment to consider her words. “It could mean lots of things, I guess.”

“Like what?”

Jack and Toshiko shared a glance at the snappish retort.

“She could have changed her name,” Toshiko said. “Gotten married, or just… changed it. She could have gone off the grid.”

“Off the what?” Ianto asked.

“Um. Gone somewhere nobody knows, I suppose,” Tosh said, throwing Jack another look. He shrugged minutely. “Or… there is the possibility she’s just… gone.”

“Gone where?” Ianto demanded.

“Like… your parents, Ianto,” she said gently. _“Gone_ gone.”

Ianto’s lips thinned to a line. That was his only response.

“But I’m sure she probably got married,” she added quickly. “Can I have her date of birth?”

“Twenty-fifth of May,” he said, “1977.”

She gave him a reassuring smile, which he returned somewhat, then turned back once more and started typing again.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, far sooner than Jack was expecting.

“What?” Jack asked, because Ianto didn’t say or do anything.

“She _did_ get married,” Toshiko explained. “She goes by—”

“No,” Ianto said abruptly.

Tosh trailed off and stared at Ianto. Jack did much of that same staring, but Ianto was too busy looking out into the distance to notice.

“I don’t want to know,” he said. “Not yet. Just… she’s alive, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tosh said.

He nodded once curtly.

“Good,” he said. “Just… not now.”

“Understood,” Tosh said softly.

She closed out of her search browser and folded her hands on her lap.

“Anything else you need?” she asked.

“If you do have something,” Jack said, “it’ll have to wait.”

Ianto arched an eyebrow perfectly.

“We don’t have your files,” Jack said. “So we’ll have to make our own. Just for record keeping.”

Ianto frowned but nodded again.

“Basic info,” Jack added. “Standard procedure.”

“I understand,” Ianto said.

Jack beckoned him to the office. He followed along obediently, along with Toshiko, who, when given a questioning glance, muttered to herself that she didn’t have anything else to be doing, really. And, for reasons unknown, Owen also popped in the moment the Jack and Ianto sat down on their respective sides of the desk. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall, surveying them all as Jack prepared the files he’d pulled out earlier.

“Name?” Jack asked.

“Ianto Jones,” Ianto said, confusedly. “You know that already.”

“Middle name, too,” Jack corrected.

“Oh. Ianto Alun Jones.” Ianto frowned. “Do you have to put that down?”

“You know, this would end a lot faster if you let me ask the questions,” Jack advised.

“Oh,” Ianto said again.

“Just stick to answering the questions.”

Ianto blinked. “Right. Okay.”

“Date of birth?”

“Nineteenth of August, 1983.”

The room suddenly got tense. Jack barely glanced over to Owen and Tosh, but he could tell they were thinking the same thing. If this man was twenty-three… then he had been six years old… damn. Jack Harkness never despised Torchwood London more than he did in that moment.

“Hometown?” he asked when he felt his throat unstick.

“Um,” Ianto said, and then nothing more.

Tosh supplied, “Newport.”

“Parents?”

Ianto frowned again. “I just—”

“I know. Parents?”

“Alun and Glenda Jones,” Ianto said.

Jack wrote that down, adding the initials Toshiko had earlier given. He wouldn’t be surprised if Ianto didn’t know those. And as for the sister, he’d have to go look through Tosh’s search if he wanted that in the file.

There wasn’t much to put down, Jack realised when they finished. The guy didn’t know half of the things about his own life, and all he did know was the few things he’d absorbed from others or knew before he was locked up for almost eighteen years.

“Is that it?” Ianto asked as Jack set his pencil down and stacked the file on the tall pile of other files on his desk.

“For now,” Jack said.

“Oh.” Ianto glanced about the room, then back at Jack. “Now what?”

“Now,” Toshiko said, checking the time on Jack’s computer screen, “we eat. It’s nearly lunch. And I don’t think you’ve had food yet today.” She sent a meaningful look at Jack.

“What?” Jack asked. “I had other things on my mind.”

“We’re sorry, Ianto,” she said pointedly.

Ianto shrugged, seeming unconcerned. “It’s not so bad. I’ve gone longer without food.”

Jack instantly felt something icy clench down on his chest. Looks passed between the three Torchwood members as Ianto surveyed Jack’s desk coral.

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Toshiko said quietly.

Jack looked down at the papers on his desk. How many times had Toshiko gone without food because the UNIT personnel couldn’t be arsed to care? Christ. Now he felt like a heel.

He looked up at Owen. “Ask Suzie to order.”

“Order what?” Owen asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jack said.

Owen scowled, but Jack could tell he was secretly pleased as he ducked out of the office. Owen was always pleased by the prospect of food, especially food he liked. Jack expected he was off to tell Suzie to order whatever he had a current craving for.

“Until food gets here…” Jack pointed at Toshiko, then to Ianto. “You’re on babysitting duty.”

“Right,” Tosh said with a twinkle in her eye that said he was forgiven. “I’ll make sure he can get into your private things and play with all of your knives.”

Jack gave her a playfully reproving snap, then stood up and left for a private location to make a phone call.

“Sorry,” General Tate said. “Nothing was found in Hartmann’s office.”

“Nothing at all?” Jack asked.

“It was burnt to the floor by the time UNIT officers got up there,” she said. “Nothing paper would have survived.”

“Is that an assumption, or did you check?” he demanded.

“Does it matter?”

“I’d say so, yes. Did you check or not?”

“You’re wasting my time, Harkness.”

The line cut and Jack swore. He nearly chucked the mobile across the room, but reined it in. Such dramatics were more suited to Owen than him. He slipped it into his pocket and left the Archives.

It wasn’t as if he was expecting for the files to have survived. But he did expect for UNIT to do their jobs at least _some_ of the time—there could have been something important that could have made it through the damage. A scrap from a page, or something. A hint of _something_ that would give Jack some idea of what the hell he was supposed to do now.

“Suzie’s just stepped out,” Toshiko said as he joined her again by her computers. “Takeaway’s here.”

“What are we eating?” Jack asked.

“Chinese,” Owen said.

“Again?” Tosh sighed.

“I wanted dumplings,” Owen said defensively. “We didn’t get those last time.”

Jack shrugged, unbothered. Food was food. So long as it was decent, it didn’t matter how many times Jack ate it over and over again. He’s lived off of less. And worse.

He frowned.

“Where’s—”

Toshiko pointed to the right before he even finished his question. Jack followed the gesture up to the stairs leading to the next level. Ianto was sat on the very top step, his arms hugged around his knees, looking out sideways over the Hub.

“Why—”

“Don’t know,” Toshiko cut off again in a hushed whisper. “He just asked me if he could sit up here. I think he needs a break.”

“From what?” Owen grouched.

“From people,” Tosh said. “It’s been a long day for him. He went from being with no people to being with four.”

Owen hmphed. Jack ignored him, still watching Ianto up on the stairs.

He didn’t know what face Ianto had on; if he had to guess, he’d say it was almost melancholic. Maybe Toshiko was right. Maybe Ianto needed time alone. Tosh certainly had, after her turn in a UNIT cell. Jack had after his time in the trenches, too, though that may have been something else entirely. But eighteen years in Torchwood London’s basement… that had to leave a mark on a person.

The cog door rolled open, distracting Jack from his thoughts. Suzie carried in a long, shallow box of takeaway bags, complete with two more bags swinging from her arms. She looked surly, something Toshiko must have noticed, as she jumped up and dashed down to help. Owen was already plodding up the steps to the conference room.

“Move,” he said the moment he reached Ianto’s step.

Ianto, face softly creased with confusion, stood and moved to the side, watching Owen finish the stairs. Then he looked down to Jack, uncertainty still etched in his gaze.

“Follow him,” Jack called up.

Ianto frowned, then nodded, turning and following Owen once more. Jack started up the stairs after, and by the heavy, clunky steps that echoed behind him, Toshiko and Suzie were on his tail not too far behind.

In the conference room, Owen was scattering papers from the last meeting off of the table, shoving them into one haphazardly loose stack. He lumped them on the end of the table, then took a few bags from Toshiko and plonked those on the table, already beginning to dig through. Suzie set her bags down, then stole herself a chair, and Tosh did the same. Once Owen found what he wanted, he settled in himself, leaving only Ianto and Jack standing.

“Sit,” Jack ordered gently, gesturing to the chair next to Suzie.

Ianto sat.

“Have some food.”

Ianto looked at the bags. Then he looked to Suzie, who was glaring at him, and looked down at the table in front of him.

“Here,” Toshiko said, taking pity on him.

She reached into one of the bags and grabbed a box. She studied it for a moment, and then Ianto.

“I think you’ll like these,” she said.

She passed the box over with a pair of chopsticks. Jack sat down and rifled through a bag for the last box. Hm. Steamed pork. Yeah, he could do with steamed pork. He opened the box as the others did the same with their own. He took an appreciative whiff, and then started to unwrap his chopsticks, ready to dig in.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

Jack, ready to snap his chopsticks apart, glanced up curiously at Owen’s appalled tone. He followed Owen’s equally horrified gaze over to his left.

Ianto was holding his still unbroken pair of chopsticks up with a dumpling speared on the end.

“I’m…” Ianto searched around the faces at the table. “…just…”

“What the hell?” Suzie asked. “What kind of monster eats dumplings like _that_?”

“God, what kind of monster _uses chopsticks_ like that?” Owen added.

“Owen,” Jack warned.

“I’m just saying!” Owen said, throwing a hand in Ianto’s direction. “Who the hell taught him to eat like that?”

“No one,” Ianto said, very, _very_ quietly. “Nobody taught me anything.”

And just like that, the mood evaporated into something empty and hollow. Toshiko looked away, down at her plate. Suzie’s sneer turned into a look of cool incredulity. Owen even had the grace to shut his mouth and dropped his hand back down to his side. Jack felt that icy clenching around his chest again.

“You’ve never used chopsticks before?” Toshiko asked, looking up again after a long silence.

Ianto shook his head slightly, slowly lowering the speared dumpling back to his takeaway box.

“Have you never had dumplings before?”

He shook his head again. “No.”

“What about Chinese?” she asked.

“No.”

“…Pad Thai?”

“No.”

“Any Asian food at all?” she asked, sounding a little desperate.

Ianto thought on it for a moment. “I had curry a few times. I think… I think that’s Asian?”

He glanced at Toshiko for confirmation.

“Yes, it’s Asian. Though it’s from a lot of Asian countries,” she said. “Some of those places don’t use chopsticks. Like India. Do you know what type of curry it was?”

He shook his head once more. “No. I just know they had it in the cafeteria some days. They brought it down for me a few times.” He almost-smiled at nothing in particular. “I liked it.”

“Did they not always give you the food they served?” Jack asked, not liking the answer he knew he was going to receive.

“No, not really. Most of the time it was just this… well, it was a mix of vitamins and minerals and stuff,” Ianto said. “I’d drink that most of the time.” At their shocked faces, he added, “It wasn’t too bad.”

“All you ate— _drank—_ was a glorified protein shake?” Owen asked.

“I don’t know what that is,” Ianto said. He frowned lightly. “Wait. Is sushi from Asia?”

“It’s Japanese,” Toshiko said, smiling.

Ianto tilted his head. “You’re Japanese.”

At Tosh’s pleased nod, he began saying something Jack only ever heard when Toshiko was making those phone calls to her relatives that she wasn’t technically supposed to make but he allowed because he took pride in being a thorn in UNIT’s side.

“You know Japanese?” she asked.

Ianto shrugged. “Only what I learned from one of my guards. He thought in Japanese sometimes.”

“Huh,” Tosh said, sounding conflicted.

“Hang on,” Suzie said abruptly. “Are you saying you’ve had sushi?”

“Yes,” Ianto said.

“Why are they giving out something so expensive to a prisoner like you?”

“Hey,” Jack said, giving her a reproving look.

“I’m just saying,” Suzie said, “that’s odd to give to someone otherwise kept on a diet of protein sludge.”

“It was after a party,” Ianto said. “They had leftovers. Nobody wanted them, so they gave them to me.”

“Did you like it?” Jack asked, mostly to get over the fact that he was a little horrified to think they treated him like a dog getting scraps. Or worse, a rubbish bin.

Ianto shrugged again. “I suppose. I’ve never had anything like it before. And they didn’t give me chopsticks with it, either.”

“That’s okay,” Toshiko said. “You don’t have to—wait. What did they give you instead? A fork?”

“No,” Ianto said, frowning. “I never got forks. I got spoons, if they gave me anything other than my drink.”

“Did…” Tosh seemed upset. Jack could practically feel it emanating from her. “Did they give you a spoon to eat sushi?”

“Yes,” Ianto said.

Tosh made a choking noise.

“It’s for chopsticks and fingers,” she said, small and pained.

“Oh.” Ianto blinked. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said quickly.

“Right.”

Ianto lost himself in something, his eyes staring off to nowhere Jack could see.

“How do I use chopsticks, then?” he asked softly after a short pause.

“Oh!” Toshiko held hers up. “I’ll show you.”

“How did you get yours like that?” Ianto asked, looking pointedly from his stuck ones to Tosh’s broken apart ones.

“Snap ‘em,” Owen said.

Ianto frowned.

“Here,” Jack said, feeling benevolent.

He held up his own unsnapped pair for Ianto to see, then demonstrated breaking them apart cleanly. Ianto copied the movement. His snapped awkwardly. He seemed embarrassed by that until Toshiko called his attention back.

“And now you just do this,” she said, illustrating the proper hold. “See?”

Ianto tried to do the same. Jack noted with curiosity that the same ungainly gangliness extended to Ianto’s fingers, awkwardly grasping the chopsticks in a loose approximation of Tosh’s own finessed, light hold.

“You can pick things up like—” Toshiko plucked up a dumpling, then waved it in the air “—like this.”

Jack just began eating, because there was no way he was going to sit and make Ianto feel uncomfortable learning how to use chopsticks when the only thing he’d used for the past eighteen years was a goddamn _spoon_. At least, not when there was the chance his food was going to get cold in the meantime.

To Ianto’s credit, he only accidentally sent a part of a dumpling flying once, and Suzie only corrected him with an annoyed tone three times, and Owen four. Toshiko did it twice (albiet far more gently). Jack just tried to lead by example—meaning, he was hungry and kept eating and let Ianto sneak peeks over to him when he pretended not to be looking.

Twenty minutes later, Ianto had managed to eat the few dumplings he could manage, and Jack was seriously eyeing the two left in his box.

“Right,” Owen said, apropos of nothing.

Jack glanced over to him.

“Finish digesting,” Owen said, poking the chopstick he’d been fiddling with for over five minutes at Ianto, “and then we’re finishing up those tests I was gonna do earlier.”

The way Ianto tensed and managed to lose every shred of facial expression made Jack shudder. He was sure he’d think back to this very moment _eons_ from now and still shudder. Jack never wanted to see something like that again.

“No,” Jack said.

“No?” Owen asked, sounding somewhat startled.

“No tests,” Jack reiterated. “None.”

“Jack,” Owen said with a slight plea. “Come on. Think this through.”

“I have,” Jack said, abandoning all hopes of those last two dumplings and preparing for the inevitable argument. “And I’m saying: no tests.”

Owen sat forward on his chair and scowled.

“We need to take tests,” he said.

Jack leant forward in his own chair. “No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we bloody do,” Owen said. “There’s still things we need to know.”

Ianto’s eyes shut tightly. Jack didn’t have time to think about that. If he did, he’d be adding that to the new list of things that he would hate for eons.

“There isn’t,” Jack said. “We already know what we need to know.”

“No,” Owen argued. “We still are missing a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Blood tests,” Owen said, beginning to tick them off on his fingers. “Reflex tests, structural scans, retinal scans, body composition scans, scans for infectious diseases… want me to go on?”

“We’re not experimenting on him!” Jack snapped.

In of the corner of Jack’s eye, Ianto flinched. Point three on his new list, then.

“I’m not bloody experimenting!” Owen retaliated. “But he’s got to go through the same bloody tests and scans that we all had to do!”

“What? _Why_?”

“Well, we can’t just fucking let him stay here if he’s not gone through the same shit we all went through, too!”

Jack stared at Own for a moment.

“What?” he asked again.

“You heard me,” Owen said, the heat gone from his tone, deviating to something more urging.

“He’s not working here,” Jack said.

“I didn’t say that, did I?” Owen asked. “Though I wouldn’t be bloody surprised if he did. Once you’re in this mess, you’re stuck here. Only way out is death.”

Jack ignored the sudden (and frankly, depressingly close to true) pessimism for the time being. “You’re saying he should live here?”

“Well, where else is he going to go?” Owen motioned to Ianto, who looked very detached from reality at the moment. “The kid doesn’t even know what a fucking _chopstick_ is, and you’re suggesting we send him out into the world?”

“I hadn’t thought about it yet,” Jack admitted, studying the unfocused Ianto.

“Of course you bloody didn’t.” The lack of venom in Owen’s tone was the only thing that kept Jack from glaring at him. “Look. We’re the only shot he’s got at life. Yeah?”

Owen looked to the women for support. Suzie gave an ambivalent one-shouldered shrug, evidently more intrigued by folding her napkin as small as it could go than with the actual conversation. Tosh pressed her lips together and gave a curt nod. Ianto still looked like he existed in another physical plane at this moment.

Then Owen looked at Jack, and the ball was in his court.

“Where is he going to stay?” Jack asked. “We can’t stick him in the cells. We’re going to need those, if you’re insisting on the Weevil project going ahead.”

“The old recovery rooms,” Owen said, as if it was obvious.

“Those haven’t been used in twenty years,” Jack said.

Owen shrugged.

“You’re cleaning them out,” Jack said.

“What? Why me?”

“Because you suggested them, and it technically falls under your duty as team medic, anyway,” Jack told him.

Owen sighed and let out a few muttered expletives.

“And no tests,” Jack said.

When Owen made to protest, Jack cut him off.

“Not now,” Jack said. “Some other time. We’ve done enough traumatic things today.”

Owen looked slightly enraged, but he didn’t say or do anything to call attention to that. He sat back and stewed on it as Toshiko finished her last dumpling. Jack was displeased by that; if Tosh had a leftover anything, she was usually kind enough to share it. Well. Ianto still wasn’t eating his.

“Ianto?” Jack asked.

Ianto blinked. Then blinked again. And once more, until he returned to reality.

“No tests,” Jack said. “Not now.”

Ianto didn’t say a word.

“But nothing too invasive,” Jack added, because at this point it was probably necessary. “Just some more scans.”

“And some blood work,” Owen said.

“And some blood work,” Jack amended. “Is that okay?”

Ianto licked his lips. “Whatever you need.”

Jack wasn’t too sure he liked that answer, but Ianto was looking less zoned-out than he was a minute ago, so he had to count that as a good sign. Or a better one, at the very least.

“Gonna eat those?” Jack asked, pointing to the dumplings.

“What?” Ianto asked. “Oh. No.”

He shoved the box over to Jack, who gladly helped himself to the remaining two. This food was too good to be wasted.

“What now?” Ianto asked as Jack crammed the last dumpling into his mouth.

“Mph,” Jack tried to say.

Toshiko quietly sighed. Suzie did so, too, only far less quietly. Owen was no longer paying attention, and therefore made no comment on Jack’s table manners. Though Jack has told them _many_ times that it’s perfectly fine, back in his home culture, they still berate him for eating and talking at the same time.

At any rate, Jack swallowed before he tried speaking again.

“Well,” he said. “I was thinking, if you’re staying here…”

Jack paused for a moment, judging Ianto’s reaction just to make sure he hadn’t missed out on that particular exchange earlier. When Ianto made no look or exclamation of surprise, Jack went on.

“Maybe you should get a tour,” he said. “Don’t want you getting lost.”

“I won’t,” Ianto said.

Jack scoffed. “You say that now, but you haven’t seen the Archives yet.”

“No, but I’ve got a map,” Ianto said. He tapped the side of his head. “Unless Suzie misremembered something.”

Jack glanced over to Suzie.

“You memorised the place?”

Suzie shifted in her seat. “Well, if you kept getting lost trying to find that alien soldering iron, you’d want a mental map, too.”

“Or that bloody bone scanner,” Owen grumbled.

“I _said_ I was sorry about that,” Toshiko muttered.

Jack coughed. Owen stopped glaring at Tosh and started glaring at Jack.

“So, I take it you don’t want a tour?” Jack asked.

“It would… be nice,” Ianto said haltingly. “But…”

“Let him outside, first,” Suzie said.

They all looked to her.

“What?” Suzie said. “I’m not completely heartless. I can tell he’s itching to be outside.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at Ianto, who was staring at Suzie like the idea she presented hadn’t even dawned on him until now.

“Ianto?” Jack asked. “Would you like to go outside?”

Ianto turned his head slowly towards Jack. He stared for a moment, as if he was unable to comprehend. Jack was beginning to think he actually _couldn’t_ comprehend it, but then Ianto nodded mutely.

“Right. Tosh’s turn for rubbish duty,” Jack said, scraping the legs of his chair across the floor as he stood.

Tosh sighed and looked disappointed as the rest of them stood up after Jack. Suzie and Owen immediately departed for whatever they wanted to get back to, but Jack took a surveying once-over of Ianto before leading him down to the main Hub.

“Invisible lift,” Jack said as they stopped in front of the pavement tile.

“Invisible… what?” Ianto asked.

“Oh,” Jack said, unsure how to explain a lift. “It’s a kind of thing that moves up—”

“Yes, I know what a lift is, thank you,” Ianto said, a tad impatiently. “Just… how can it be invisible?”

“Dimensionally transcendental chameleon circuit. Something with one must have landed here and transferred its properties,” Jack said. He always got that stupidly smug feeling when he said it.

“Ah,” Ianto said.

That took the smugness right away from Jack, because it wasn’t an uninformed, confused “ah.” It was an “oh, I’ve seen this before” kind of “ah.”

“Right.” Jack studied him once more. An idea hit him. “I’m going to need you to close your eyes.”

“What for?” Ianto asked, reasonably suspicious.

“Just trust me.”

“A tall order, considering I just met you,” Ianto said smoothly.

“Think you can learn to?”

Ianto’s eyebrow raised.

“I promise I won’t do anything stupid,” Jack said, grinning.

Ianto rolled his eyes then.

“Fine,” he said, and he closed his eyes.

Jack stepped close to Ianto, covering Ianto’s eyes with his hands.

“What are you doing?” Ianto asked, somewhat exasperatedly.

“Keeping it a surprise,” Jack said. “Take a step forward.”

They got him up onto the pavement square. Jack shifted him to the centre, then released one hand from Ianto’s face to press a few buttons on his vortex manipulator. He slapped his hand back over Ianto’s face quickly, earning him a mock “ow.” Jack just smiled as the sky opened up above them and they began to raise upwards.

“Could be smoother,” Ianto said after the initial jolt.

Jack noted the sarcasm for later consideration.

He was grateful for the warm, late spring day, with its sun and its lack of clouds. Couldn’t pick a better day for reuniting the world with someone, he figured as the lift lurched to a halt.

“Ready?” he asked Ianto.

Beneath his hands, Ianto let out an unsteady huff of air.

“Go on, then,” Ianto said with uncertain confidence after a few moments.

Jack smiled to himself, then dropped his hands to his sides.

Ianto blinked his eyes open, and then blinked some more as his eyes adjusted to the bright daylight. He blinked and blinked and blinked and then all of the sudden, he stopped. And he just stared.

“Oh,” he said. _“Oh.”_

And then his face crumpled as he began to cry, his body giving way as the earth that used to entomb him called him home again. Jack caught him halfway down, easing him the rest of the way, and holding on as Ianto sobbed like a wounded beast. Jack just kept holding on, because that was all he could do as Ianto raged away eighteen years of missing _this_.

It was a long, long time before they were sitting on the edge of the pavement, watching the people pass by. Earlier, when Ianto had been crying, they’d been sending shocked glances around, because even though they couldn’t see them on the invisible lift, they could _hear_ them occasionally. But now, the people were talking amongst themselves and joking and running errands and overall just living life.

Ianto had his elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded together as he observed everything before him with red-rimmed eyes. Jack had one of his own hands steadily travelling up and down Ianto’s back, providing comfort that was no longer necessarily needed, but evidently appreciated, nonetheless.

“They don’t know, do they?” Ianto asked after a while. His voice was hoarse and raw.

“Know what?” Jack asked gently.

“Anything,” Ianto said. “Anything at all. They just keep going about their lives, oblivious to everything they see and hear. Not knowing what’s directly below their feet, or above them amongst the stars.”

“We work hard to keep it that way,” Jack said.

“Why?” Ianto asked. “What good does it do?”

“It protects them,” Jack said.

Ianto scoffed.

“Seriously,” Jack said, stopping his hand right on the nape of Ianto’s neck and brushing the fine hairs with his thumb. “You think they could handle this? The aliens and the monsters of the world?”

“The people like me,” Ianto added darkly.

Jack didn’t say anything to that. There was nothing worthwhile he could say.

“We keep them as ignorant and oblivious as possible,” Jack says. “The twenty-first century… people aren’t ready for what’s out there. They will be, and soon, but just… not yet.”

“And that’s your job?” Ianto asked. “To be ready?”

“Exactly.”

Ianto breathed a laugh. “Sounds like a pretty rough job.”

“You have no idea,” Jack chuckled.

“Hm.”

“It could be your job,” Jack offered.

“Mine?” Ianto asked sceptically.

“If you’d like,” Jack said.

Ianto let out another scornful laugh. “You’re taking on the guy who knows nothing about this world and asking him to help you protect it. What role would I even fill on your team?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, quite honestly. “Suppose we’ll have to make one for you.”

Ianto was silent for a moment.

“Can I make the coffee?” he asked.

Jack frowned at him. “You can’t make coffee.”

“No, but one of the… doctors… she used to be a barista at uni,” Ianto said. His hands released one another so he could tap his temple. “Never left me.”

“Alright.” Jack laughed. “Ianto Jones, saviour of the world via coffee. Sounds perfect to me.”

Ianto smiled the ghost of a smile and kept watching the people pass by. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Amazing_ artwork done by @searching-for-arcadia on tumblr! Please go [check it out](https://searching-for-arcadia.tumblr.com/post/628309892924637184/inspired-by-iianto-jones-visions-of-eternity); it is SO BEAUTIFUL!!! I am simply in awe of it!!  
> Thank you for reading! Have a pleasant day!


	5. Chapter 5

Settling Ianto in was either very difficult or very easy, and Jack had no idea which it was.

It became very clear very fast that Ianto had a rather odd and sporadic set of knowledge and skills. He could speak Mandarin fluently, but had no idea where to place China on a map. He knew how to play a cello, but also had never seen a cello before and wouldn’t be able to tell it from, say, a viola, even if his life depended on it. And, while he could evidently understand anything said about chameleon circuits, the first time he’d ever showered had been yesterday. And he’d never shaved before in his life.

“There was this spray, every morning,” Ianto said as Jack brought out the shaving cream. “I don’t know what was in it. But I didn’t have to shower. And my hair didn’t grow at all.”

“Huh,” Jack said, mentally adding to the list of tests Owen would have to do on Ianto today. Hopefully there had been nothing harmful in those sprays…

“I don’t think it did anything, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Ianto said. “But I just… don’t know…”

He mumbled the rest of the “how to shave,” looking somewhat embarrassed.

“Hey, if it’s any consolation,” Jack said, passing him a razor, “I haven’t shaved in—”

He stopped short. Whoops.

“Anyway,” he hurried on, “it’s not too hard. Slather your face in foam, gentle strokes down, try not to press too hard with the razor.”

Ianto eyed the bottle and the razor with suspicion for a moment, then began to follow Jack’s instructions. Jack guided him through every step of the process, wincing along with Ianto as he nicked himself once, twice, thrice... By the end of it, Ianto had two impressive cuts across his cheek and one less dignified one on his neck, but he was fully shaved. He also had a puff of foam still sticking by his ear, which Jack found more fascinating than probably necessary. But Ianto was shaved and back to his normal baby-faced self.

Gauntly baby-faced, Jack thought to himself as he took in Ianto’s scrawniness yet again. Whatever drinks they’d been feeding him had clearly never been enough. Though Owen would likely have more to say on the matter than Jack could ever speculate from mere glances at Ianto’s figure.

“Okay,” Jack said, flicking the dot of foam from Ianto’s face.

“Okay?” Ianto parroted, frowning.

“Owen’s waiting for you,” Jack said. “Remember your way back to the—”

“Yes,” Ianto said hastily.

He licked his lips and looked at his feet, and Jack felt a small pang of pity.

“His bark is worse than his bite,” Jack said.

“What?” Ianto asked, frowning.

“He’s not going to hurt you,” Jack restated. “He just sounds… well, he sounds like he _is_ going to hurt you, but he won’t.”

Ianto didn’t look at all reassured. Jack couldn’t blame him.

Jack stayed behind to clean down the bathroom as Ianto left, mostly because he was saving himself from Owen’s sharp tongue. Owen had berated Jack all yesterday afternoon for denying him the chance to run his tests while he had the time. Jack had just (rather correctly) assumed that Ianto had had too long of a day already and needed a break. Or as much of a break as they could give him for the rest of the day.

The thing with introducing someone into this society, Jack figured, was that it was so hard to do it in a controlled way. Especially with Ianto. If he wasn’t glancing around the Hub and finding things unknown to him, he was poking around someone’s head (or some _thing_ ’s past) and discovering new things there. Jack didn’t know how to keep Ianto from overwhelming himself.

Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and left the bathroom in deep contemplation. He wanted to make things as easy as possible, but there was no such thing as “easy” when it came to this world.

He passed by Suzie on his way back through the main Hub. She had a gigantic chunk of scrap metal in her hands.

“What’s that?” Jack asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing, really. Was just thinking I could melt it down. Might be more useful that way.”

Useful to what, Jack didn’t know. But he knew Suzie was getting restless without a real project. Suzie needed entertainment, or she got crankier than Owen and started doing random things, like melting down scrap metal for no real reason. Jack hoped something would show up soon for her.

“Is Owen—”

“Torturing the poor sod?” Suzie finished. “What do you think?”

Jack sighed. “Right. Better go supervise.”

Suzie scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that.”

She retreated back to her station and practically slammed the large chunk of metal on the table. Jack cringed as the echoes rang through his head, then left to find Owen. Leaving one grump to find another, he mused to himself.

Ianto was sitting on the edge of the autopsy table again, staring down at his arm as Owen drew some blood samples. He somehow looked paler than usual, and Jack wasn’t sure if that was because of the blood being drawn, or because of the _blood being drawn_. But Ianto looked up at him the moment his feet came down from the last step, and Ianto neither swooned, fainted, or panted, so Jack assumed that it was just the concept of the blood being drawn.

Owen was muttering to himself as he took the needle out of Ianto’s arm and pressed gauze onto it.

“Hold that,” he ordered Ianto.

Ianto pressed the gauze down with a finger as Owen removed his thumb, still muttering to himself as he went to go label the vials of blood.

“What’s got him in a mood?” Jack asked Ianto as he joined him by the autopsy table.

“I… um…”

“He bloody hit me,” Owen said, whirling around with a vindictive glare on his face. “Socked me right in the jaw.”

Jack sent Ianto an impressed look.

“He came at me with a needle,” Ianto mumbled defensively. “And he didn’t say what he was going to do with it.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to bloody stick you in the eye, now, was I?”

Ianto didn’t say a word.

“Hey, Ianto?” Jack asked when the silence suddenly became uncomfortable. “How many tests did they actually do on you?”

For another moment, Ianto still said nor did nothing. Then he sighed, shrugged, and slumped slightly forward.

“Dunno,” he said. “I forgot most of it. I was young. They stopped doing it after I turned twelve, mostly, because there was another director and he didn’t much care about me, but… I dunno. I was something… interesting. They wanted to see what I could do for them. It… might’ve been every day. I don’t know. It’s hard to remember.”

“Christ.”

Jack, Owen, and Ianto all glanced up at Toshiko, leaning on the railing and looking down with a horrified expression.

“You were _six_ ,” she said, revolted.

“They didn’t care,” Ianto said with another shrug. “They could do with me what they liked. If it’s alien, it’s theirs.”

“You’re not an alien.”

“Didn’t matter to them,” he said. “I was still their property. And I disappeared from the world the moment they got their hands on me; I had no rights.”

“You have rights now,” Toshiko said forcefully.

Ianto made a face that could have either been a grimace or a smile.

“How many times did they open up your skull?” Owen asked, gesturing to Ianto’s head.

Ianto studied him with a frown.

“The scans I took right away,” Owen said, pointing to the projected image of a body on the wall. Oh. That’s whose it was. “Scar tissue. All over your head.”

Ianto ran a self-conscious hand through his hair. “I lost count.”

Silence descended over the four of them. Jack had no idea what to say, and he could tell Tosh and Owen didn’t, either. Ianto just looked lost in his memories.

“Well,” Owen announced loudly, just as the silence was getting too painful to bear. “Bone structure scans next. Lie down.”

Ianto sighed, then swung his legs up onto the table and stretched out, closing his eyes and letting Owen get on with all the things Ianto surely didn’t want to let him do.

Jack and Toshiko shared a glance, and it became very clear in that moment that, had Torchwood One not already fallen, it would be in smoking ruins by the hands of three very pissed off, vengeful people.

* * *

Ianto didn’t find the coffee machine until three days into his stay at Hotel Torchwood (as Suzie not-so-nicely put it in Ianto’s presence—not that Ianto understood the gibe enough to be offended). Jack almost wished he hadn’t found it, because while the coffee was certainly a step up from Owen’s, it still wasn’t very… good.

Jack tried to hold back his grimace after his first sip, but Ianto spotted the disgust on his face, anyway.

“I think there’s something in the machine,” Ianto said apologetically. “It smells burnt.”

“Mmm,” Jack agreed.

“It’s okay,” Ianto said. “You can tell me it’s bad. Owen and Suzie did.”

“What about Toshiko?” Jack asked, avoiding the topic as much as possible.

Ianto gave a sly smile. “She got tea.”

Jack frowned. “Why does _Tosh_ get tea?”

“Because she showed me how to make it,” Ianto said, “and also because I didn’t realise the coffee was off until I’d poured three mugs. Someone had to have them.”

Jack made a playful mock growl in the back of his throat, and he took another sip of the burnt coffee.

“Well,” he said. “I’m sure it will be just fine when you clean out the machine.”

“I knew you hated it,” Ianto said, but there was a soft smile on his face. “And I’ll clean it out later. Once someone tells me how.”

“I’m sure Toshiko can find you some instructional videos,” Jack assured him.

Toshiko always had a plethora of instructional videos just seemingly lying in wait. Jack once asked her how women wore bras (as a joke—he knew how they wore bras), and she pulled up a video and made him sit all the way through it. It had been very uncomfortable. Toshiko did seem to like her instructional videos, though, so Jack never said a word.

“She said she could find the best roasts,” Ianto said. “On the… internet?”

Jack nearly laughed.

“She’ll pick it up tomorrow, she said,” Ianto continued, oblivious to Jack’s grin. “And then I’ll try it again.”

“Did the woman you stole the coffee memories from—”

“I didn’t steal them,” Ianto cut in. “They just showed up.”

“—did she know how to make different roasts, or what?” Jack finished.

“Yes,” Ianto snapped. “She wasn’t an idiot.”

Jack held up his hands in defence.

“Sorry,” Ianto said, glancing down at Jack’s desk. “I just… I know what I know.”

“I understand,” Jack said, though he wasn’t sure he did.

The next morning, Ianto brought Jack a fresh cup of coffee the moment Jack stepped out of his office. Jack raised an eyebrow at him, and he raised an eyebrow right back, surveying as Jack took a sip of the coffee.

“Wow,” was all Jack could think to say.

“I told you,” Ianto said, not smugly.

Then he whisked himself away, tray of mugs firmly gripped in his hands (where had he found that?) as he went off to deliver his goods to Suzie, Toshiko, and Owen.

Jack could only continue sipping his coffee in quiet reflection. _This_ , at least, was an easy part of settling Ianto in.

* * *

On the seventh night Ianto had been with them, Jack was in his office, working late. Suzie, Tosh, and Owen had just left, possibly for another one of their pub nights. Jack should probably join in on those. Team bonding, and whatnot. Though he wasn’t sure about the etiquette of bringing a boss along on a team bonding pub night. Toshiko would know.

A very hesitant knock came to his door. Jack looked up.

“Come in?” he said, confused.

Ianto’s head poked through the door. Oh. That made more sense. Or did it? Was Ianto supposed to know how to knock? It was a guessing game, when it came to trying to understand what Ianto did or did not know.

Jack set his pencil down, leaning back in his chair. “What do you need?”

“It’s… I need to go,” Ianto said. “Outside, I mean.”

Jack blinked. For a moment, it sounded to him like what dogs would say if they could talk. Then he felt badly about that thought. And then he realised—

“Ianto, you don’t need permission to go outside,” Jack said, as delicately as he could. “It’s free to access any time you’d like.”

“It’s… not that,” Ianto said. “I just… need you.”

Well. Jack supposed the outside world might be somewhat daunting for Ianto to face on his own—come to think of it, Ianto had only gone outside for no longer than half an hour the past couple of days, and each time only with Toshiko.

“To drive,” Ianto finished awkwardly.

Oh.

Huh.

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Because I can’t,” Ianto said, rather uselessly.

“No, I know that,” Jack said, pushing his chair back so he could stand. “But why do you need me to drive you?”

Unexpectedly, Ianto’s face split into a grin.

“She’s back,” he said.

Jack frowned. “What?”

“She’s back,” Ianto repeated. “I don’t know why she’s in Cardiff, but she is.”

“She who?” Jack asked.

“I’ll tell you where to go,” Ianto said. “She’s in a warehouse. I—she’s… she’s back.”

And then Ianto disappeared out the door.

 _“What?”_ Jack asked nobody in particular.

Shaking his head, he grabbed his coat, flinging over his shoulders as he left his office after Ianto. He didn’t see Ianto in the main section of the Hub, which confused him, because as far as he knew, Ianto didn’t know where the SUV was. Shrugging to himself, he made his way to the garage. If Ianto wasn’t there in ten minutes, then Jack would go back to his office and finish his work. Maybe call up Suzie, Owen, and Toshiko to figure it out.

Jack had barely sat down in the driver’s seat of the SUV before there was a knock on the passenger side. Christ. Did this kid think he needed to knock on _every_ door he came across?

“Come in!” Jack called.

The door opened hesitantly.

“Where… do I sit?” Ianto asked, slowly glancing between the front and back seats of the car.

“Anywhere you’d like,” Jack said.

Ianto pressed his lips together in contemplation, then climbed onto the passenger seat beside Jack.

“I’ve never seen a car like this,” he said. “Haven’t been in a car in… a long time.”

“Well, technically,” Jack said, “you were in an ambulance a week ago. And then in the SUV on the way over to Cardiff. You were just…”

“Drugged?” Ianto finished.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you had to be sedated,” Jack said. Then internally winced. Not the smartest choice of words.

Ianto just shrugged, making no comment of his own.

“Buckle,” Jack told him.

“I know,” he said, a tad defensively, but it took him a few tries to get his seatbelt clicked in.

Jack sent him a frown, then started the SUV.

“You’re going to have to tell me where we’re going,” Jack said before he began driving.

“To the warehouse.”

“Ianto, that is not at all helpful in the slightest,” Jack informed him.

“Just drive,” Ianto sighed, “and have a little faith in me?”

Jack raised his eyebrows and blinked.

“Fine then,” he said, and he began to take off.

Ianto was _horrible_ at giving directions. Sure, he knew his lefts and his rights, but he was very bad at timing. He once called “left here!” right as Jack zipped passed the turn. Jack had to break a few laws to get back around and get back to the turn (including driving back on the same side of the road he was just on). Then Ianto shouted “stop!” when they weren’t even _at_ the warehouse yet. Jack kept driving, because he could see it up in the distance.

When he parked, he leapt out of the SUV almost instantly, taking long strides to the warehouse door. He still had no fucking clue what was in the thing; Ianto hadn’t said a word about it on the way over. So, when he opened the door, expecting a woman or something, he was shocked as all hell to find a giant _dinosaur_ flying up near the rafters.

“You didn’t tell me she was a dinosaur,” Jack hissed, slamming the door back shut.

“Oh,” Ianto said, peering over Jack’s shoulder as if he could see through the door.

“Come on,” Jack growled.

He snagged Ianto’s elbow and began tugging him back to the SUV, standing him just to the right so he could keep an eye on Ianto as he opened the boot of the car. He surveyed the equipment, then reached for the tranquiliser kit. If it could work on a Hoix, it would work on a goddamn pterodactyl.

“Okay, that is the only special equipment you’ve got?” Ianto remarked as Jack screwed together the tranquiliser.

“Yeah,” Jack said sarcastically, “because I keep dinosaur nets in the back of the SUV.”

“Torchwood London did,” Ianto said.

Jack glanced at him for a second, worried, but Ianto just had a contemplative look on his face. Jack didn’t know what to make of that, so he just dashed off, prepared to get this whole mess over with. Ianto followed, hot on Jack’s heels, and they burst right through the door.

The pterodactyl was _not_ pleased by this.

“Nope,” Ianto said, and Jack pulled him back outside the warehouse again.

They slammed the door shut and leant on it to keep it from… well, it couldn’t really escape through such a narrow door if it was flying, but it certainly could stick its head through and peck at them, and Jack didn’t think death by pterodactyl sounded all too fun right now. And he supposed the door opened inwards—but, hey, none of that mattered. Heat of the moment.

“How’d you find it?” Jack asked.

“Um,” Ianto said, just as Jack figured out how stupid his question was. “I just… did.”

“Huh,” Jack said. “It’s quite excitable.”

“Must be your aftershave,” Ianto said dryly.

“Never wear any,” Jack replied, slightly baffled, because who taught Ianto about aftershave? Not _Jack_. Certainly not Owen. Toshiko?

Ianto was evidently equally as baffled. “You smell like that naturally?”

“Fifty-first century pheromones,” Jack said, rolling with the inanity of it all. “You people have no idea. Ready for another go?”

“I’m game if you are,” Ianto said.

On Jack’s mark, they barged back into the warehouse, only to have to split apart as the pterodactyl tried to divebomb them. The pterodactyl landed where they had been while Jack and Ianto met back up where _it_ had been. Jack stopped Ianto and shushed him, and Ianto, for no reason at all, stepped into some little fighting stance. Jack had to admit… it was kind of cute… especially since he was fairly certain Ianto had no fighting abilities whatsoever.

Jack didn’t really know _why_ he started talking to the dinosaur, but he did. The thing was kind of impressive.

“We’re not going to harm you,” he told it. “You can’t stay here. Come back with me. I’ve got somewhere nice and big where you can fly around.”

“What? You’re just letting her come?” Ianto asked.

“We need a guard dog,” Jack told him. That, and the thing really just couldn’t stay here.

“Okay, you can’t just walk up to her like that,” Ianto whispered as Jack slowly edged his way forward, hand raised. “You’ll scare her. Or make her mad. She does have feelings. Hey, are you even listening to me?”

He snagged onto Jack’s arm.

“Shush,” Jack told him, trying to wrench his arm away.

“What even is your plan?” Ianto asked as Jack managed to get his arm back.

“I’m going to be the decoy.”

“And she’ll rip you to shreds,” Ianto said, interrupting the rest of Jack’s plan.

“Dinosaurs?” Jack scoffed. “Had ‘em for breakfast.”

When Ianto looked horrified, Jack explained (in minor detail) his excursion in the late Cretaceous era. Ianto did not look less horrified, so Jack just tried to hand him the tranquiliser hypodermic.

“One injection to the central nervous cortex,” Jack told him. “I’ll keep it occupied.”

He gave Ianto a light smack on the chest.

“Move,” he ordered.

“No.”

“What?” Jack took back the tranquiliser hypodermic as Ianto pressed it back.

“She knows me,” Ianto muttered. “I’ll be a better decoy.”

“Way too dangerous,” Jack said.

“No, I’ve got a secret weapon.”

Then, from out of the pocket of one of Owen’s old jackets, Ianto pulled out a bar of—

“Chocolate,” Ianto said. “Preferably dark.”

Ianto started running then, but Jack remained rooted in spot as several thoughts cascaded through his head. Where did Ianto get the chocolate? How the hell had it not melted? And why would that distract the dinosaur?

Jack shoved the thoughts aside. Not important. He had a job to do.

He walked around the opposite side to Ianto’s own trail, watching the younger man the entire time. Ianto was whistling to catch the pterodactyl’s attention.

“Got your favourite,” Ianto told the creature. “Yeah.”

Ianto made a little fist pump, which Jack was dead certain he would never understand to the day he truly died, and then tossed the chocolate, still wrapped, at the dinosaur.

“It’s good with your serotonin levels,” Ianto said, somehow trying to _reason_ with the thing. “Whatever those are.”

The pterodactyl evidently did _not_ have the serotonin levels, and it rounded on Jack.

Jack could honestly say, while he did love flying and heights more than most things on this planet, there was no way in hell he’d take a pterodactyl ride again.

Though, if he had his choice in crash landings, he would take this one. Every single time.

“Sorry,” Jack said to Ianto, though that was more for injuring him than falling on him.

“Look out!”

Jack wasn’t sure who initiated the roll—it may have been both of them, for all he knew—but roll they did, away from the crashing pterodactyl. Jack couldn’t help but laugh as it fell and was shocked to hear Ianto do the same. He’d never heard Ianto laugh before now. It was… nice.

And then there was a… a moment of something. Jack wouldn’t ever decide of what that something was, but it was certainly _something_.

“The pteranodon,” Ianto said after a beat.

Jack would’ve been hurt by that, but it sounded more like Ianto said that as a distraction, not because of distraction. Though Jack had no idea why he would be hurt if it was the latter instead.

Ianto got up off of Jack, but Jack stayed there for a few seconds more, trying to make sense of the past few minutes. Eventually, he himself had to get up, and he made his way over to the dinosaur.

“She wouldn’t have gone down without the… the thing you gave her, right?” Ianto asked.

“No,” Jack said.

Ianto nodded, as if resolving some inner turmoil within himself.

“Help me get it to the SUV,” Jack said.

Between them, they somehow managed to half-drag, half-carry the dinosaur to the SUV, then hoist it into the boot. Jack discarded of the large needle in the tranquiliser kit, then shoved that where it was supposed to be. It was a tight squeeze with the pterodactyl, but Jack could make it work.

“Are you sure she’s alright?” Ianto asked, looking over Jack’s shoulder at the prone dinosaur.

“As long as she doesn’t wake up halfway through the trip back, she’ll be fine.”

“Could that happen?” Ianto asked as Jack shut the boot.

“No idea,” Jack said.

Jack walked around to the front again and slipped inside to regain a little warmth. The air outside was cooler than he’d thought it should be for a day in early June, but then again, the rain did take the temperature down a bit.

Ianto got in on his side of the SUV, so Jack started it up, and then took off back to home.

“So,” Jack said when he became too curious to stay quiet. “How the hell did you know that thing was going to be in the warehouse?”

“I knew her, back in London,” Ianto said.

“You did?” Jack tried, and failed, to imagine a pterodactyl meeting Ianto in whatever cell Torchwood London had stuck him in.

“Sort of. They kept her for study a few floors up,” Ianto said. “I heard lots of things from her.”

“So, she doesn’t know you?” Jack asked, thinking back to Ianto’s earlier statement.

“Well, no,” Ianto said. “But I’d been in her head enough to think… that it would work.”

“It didn’t.”

“I said I _thought_ it would,” Ianto said.

They were silent again for a while. Then Ianto pulled out the chocolate bar again from his jacket, which only lead to more questions floating around Jack’s brain. When had Ianto retrieved that? How had it still not melted? And why did he have it in the first place?

And then Ianto started to unwrap it, and Jack had to snatch it from his hands.

“Hey!”

“That was on the ground,” Jack said, “and pecked by a dinosaur.”

“It was in the wrapper still!”

“It’s not good for you.”

“I just want to taste it!”

Jack shut his mouth and handed the chocolate back over. Ianto grabbed it back, then snapped off a piece. He sniffed it, which Jack tried not to laugh at, and then bit into it.

The look on his face was one of pure bliss. Jack could only equate it to what he assumed his own face made after having that first sip of Ianto’s coffee.

“Good?” Jack asked.

“Very,” Ianto said, breaking another chunk off. “I haven’t had it in years. Director Hartman didn’t…”

He took another bite instead of finishing his statement, leading Jack to believe this was something better left untouched.

“Do dinosaurs really like dark chocolate?” Jack asked him instead.

Ianto shrugged.

“Dunno,” he said when he’d swallowed his most recent bite of chocolate. “I just… knew, for her. I don’t think she’s had it before, but I know she’d like it.”

“Like you,” Jack surmised.

Ianto’s lips twitched into another small smile.

“Where’d you even get that from, anyway?” Jack asked.

“Tosh’s desk,” Ianto said. “I’ll apologise tomorrow. You… don’t think she’ll be mad at me… do you?”

“Not likely,” Jack said. Toshiko had the habit of quietly fuming to herself, but only if she was in a bad mood or if something had personally offended her in ways that hurt. A stolen bar of chocolate was easily replaced, especially when the thief was Ianto. Jack suspected she had a soft spot for Ianto. “But you might want to do some explaining, along with your apologising.”

Ianto nodded, completely serious.

“Do you think an extra cup of tea will make it better?”

“Well, I suppose it couldn’t _hurt_ ,” Jack said, “though I’m not sure if it’s entirely necessary.”

“I see,” Ianto said, but in a way that meant he ignored the last part.

There was silence again.

“This dinosaur’s your responsibility, by the way,” Jack told him when the pause had gone on for long enough. “If you were so adamant we go and get her, that makes her yours.”

“Like a pet,” Ianto said thoughtfully.

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever,” Jack said. Then he frowned. “Hang on, wait, no. I said guard dog, remember? She’s the guard dog.”

“I don’t know what to do with guard dogs,” Ianto said.

“Train them.”

“So… like a pet.”

“No,” Jack said. “Not like a pet.”

“Well, it sounds like a pet to me.”

“It’s _not_ ,” Jack said. “How would you even know what having a pet is like?”

Jack instantly regretted that. Low blow, Harkness. Low blow.

Fortunately, Ianto didn’t appear to notice. Or if he did, he just didn’t seem to mind.

“I had a fish,” Ianto said. “Trevor.”

“Um,” Jack said.

“I don’t know what happened to him,” Ianto said. “Toshiko’s records wouldn’t tell me about that, would they?”

“I’m not sure,” Jack hedged. “Though I wouldn’t think so.”

“Hm.”

“But anyway,” Jack said quickly. “Guard dogs are not pets. Different functions.”

“I still think they’re the same.”

“Trevor wasn’t a guard fish, was he?”

“No, but that’s different. Pets aren’t guard dogs, but guard dogs are pets,” Ianto said. “Like squares are rectangles, but rectangles aren’t all squares.”

Jack wasn’t sure where that analogy came from.

“Well, if you want to make her a pet, that’s your problem,” he told Ianto. “Your job to watch over her. And clean up after her. And feed her. And all that.”

“What are we going to feed her?” Ianto asked, ignoring most of what Jack said. “We can’t just give her chocolate all of the time.”

“I’ll think of something.” Which meant he would hand the issue over to Owen and have Owen figure it out. “Probably whatever she ate back in her own time.”

“Poor girl,” Ianto said. “She hasn’t got a home anymore.”

“She has Torchwood now,” Jack said. “That’s home enough.”

Ianto glanced at Jack.

“Maybe,” he said.

And that was that for the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a lovely day!


	6. Chapter 6

One night, roughly two weeks into Ianto’s stay, Jack was tired, but too tired to sleep, so he’d gone walking around the Hub. Usually he went to find a roof, but for some reason, he felt like meandering the halls of the Archives. He figured he could take one of the large stacks on his desk down and sort it out. He wasn’t going to do it otherwise, so why not during a midnight insomnia trek?

He didn’t even make it to the Archives, because there, in the dim blue lights of the Hub’s dark mode, was Ianto Jones, shoving things into large black plastic bag. Jack watched him for a moment, too stunned by this to do anything else.

“Ianto?” he asked when his brain rebooted.

Ianto startled, nearly dropping the bag from his hands as he whipped around to see Jack.

“Sorry,” he said, for reasons Jack did not know. “I didn't…”

He trailed off and blinked.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I live here,” Jack said. Had that not come up before?

“Oh,” Ianto said. “That explains…”

He cut himself off again, looking curious.

“Explains what?” Jack asked.

“Why you’d let me stay here,” Ianto finished. “I didn’t think you’d trust me that easily. Just letting me walk around at night… you barely even know me.”

“Well, we’d kinda hoped you’d be sleeping at night,” Jack said, smiling.

Ianto’s eyes glinted in the blue lights as he rolled them.

“It’s hard to sleep,” Ianto said, turning back around to return to stuffing things in his plastic bag. “The lights are… dark.”

“And that’s bad?” Jack asked.

Ianto shrugged, displaying his arse rather nicely as he bent over to pick up a pizza box from the coffee table. Jack took an appreciative (yet respectful) ogle.

“Just not used to it,” Ianto said, straightening up and turning back again. “Used to be bright, back in my box.”

“Box?”

Ianto shrugged again. “It was shaped like a box. Felt like a box. Acted like a box. So… a box.”

“I see,” Jack said. He didn’t. He’d have to ask later. Now, he had other things on his mind. “What are you doing?”

Ianto held up the plastic bag.

“Suzie taught me how to take out the rubbish,” he said.

Jack snorted. Of _course_ she did. Rubbish duty was never anyone’s cup of tea. Hence why the place was always so cluttered and disgusting all of the time. Even Toshiko hoarded old coffee cups, empty crisp packets, and useless papers on her desk.

“You don’t have to do what she tells you,” Jack told Ianto.

“I know, but…” Ianto gestured around the place. “I have two things to do. Make the coffee and deal with Myfanwy. That’s not—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jack said, holding up a hand. “You named the pterodactyl _Myfanwy_?”

“She needed a name,” Ianto said awkwardly. “And she’s a pteranodon.”

“Right.”

“Anyway,” he said, “it’s new to me, this.”

“Taking out the rubbish,” Jack said.

“Well, yes.”

Jack stared at him, and he seemed to grow uncomfortable.

“Look, I just need something to do,” Ianto said softly. “I’ve spent my whole life doing _nothing_. It’s not all that Owen thinks it is. It’s mostly just…”

Ianto didn’t finish his statement, merely shaking his head and moving on.

“I want to do something. And clearing up your rubbish is… better than nothing.”

Jack supposed it would have been. But…

He looked down at the files tucked away under his arms.

“How would you like to learn how to archive?” he asked.

Whatever reaction he expected to receive from Ianto, it was not the sudden blooming look of muted glee. Honestly, Jack just hadn’t wanted to futz around the Archives all night by himself (or do any more archival work at all, to be honest), but evidently, he’d struck a chord with Ianto.

“Do you mean—really?” Ianto asked, stumbling a little over his tongue.

“Sure,” Jack said. “Why? What’s with archiving?”

The smile on Ianto’s face spread.

“I always got a lot from the Archivists in London,” he said. “I dunno if it was the proximity but… they always seemed so… so content. They liked their jobs. _I_ liked their jobs,” he added softly. “I’d have given anything… I just wanted to go up and see what the fuss was about.”

“Well,” Jack said, “if you’d really like a shot…”

“Don’t you have to go to school for this?” Ianto asked. “Or at least know what you’re doing?”

“If you’ve picked up enough from those Archivists over the years, and as long as _you_ know how things are organised,” Jack said, “I think it’ll be okay.”

“What if I decide to organise it in an increasingly frustrating, impossible to understand, blatantly annoying way?” Ianto asked.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to do that?”

“Maybe,” Ianto said, tone faking grave. “The power could go to my head.”

“Fortunately,” Jack said, “I have a team that handles power-hungry fools like that.”

“Hm,” Ianto said. “I’ll have to watch my back.”

Jack opened his mouth to say something more, then shut it. What the hell were they doing? This was like rolling over each other all over again. Weird and… new… and probably best avoided.

He pulled the stack of files out from under his arm. “Well. Shall we get started, then?”

Ianto looked at the still cluttered coffee table, then at the bag in his hand.

“Can I finish this off, first?”

Jack motioned for him to continue.

Ianto was done in less than a minute, with effective and streamlined precision that surprised Jack. Those gangly, awkward limbs could evidently make fluid, efficient movements. Jack shook his head. Not important.

“Ready?” Jack asked as Ianto gently set the bag next to the coffee table.

“I suppose,” Ianto said. There was something under his tone. Excitement, most likely.

Jack handed over a few of the files, which he took and immediately began organising in his hands. Jack raised an eyebrow.

“You really do want this job, don’t you?” he remarked.

Ianto rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched upwards.

“Come on,” Jack said. “Your Archives await.”

* * *

“Where’s Ianto?” Toshiko asked, poking her head into Jack’s office.

“Hm?” Jack looked up from the past-due quarterly expense report. “Don’t know.”

“He hasn’t brought the coffees around this morning,” she said.

Jack frowned. Now that he was thinking of it, yeah, he was feeling a little caffeine deprived. Why was Ianto late? Ianto usually liked to be on time with everything. His coffee was doled out at eight on the dot, then again at ten, and if need-be (because rough days definitely did exist here at Torchwood Cardiff), once more at eleven. And now it was… eight fifteen, if Jack’s computer was correct.

“Should we go check on him?” Toshiko asked.

“I suppose we should,” Jack said. He stacked his papers and stood. “I’ll check down in the Archives. It might be he’s holed himself up in there again.”

“I’ll… meander about the Hub,” Tosh said. “See if he turns up.”

Jack was about to suggest that she go and delegate Suzie and Owen to other sectors of the Hub, but they would probably instantly decline and beg off with other work. No point in bothering, so he just gave her a light smile and made his way slowly out. It wasn’t as if he had to run; Ianto wouldn’t have gotten himself sucked into another dimension, or anything. Right?

He sighed and picked up his pace slightly.

When he was nearing the first level of the Archives, he noticed a door with light pouring out underneath it. Jack frowned. That was odd—that room was never in use. Not that Jack could ever recall. He grabbed the handle and pushed it open, only to find Ianto standing in an almost completely white room.

“Oh,” Jack said, realising belatedly what the rooms along this hall used to be.

He’d never been in Ianto’s room before. Never really saw the point in it. And now that he was in it, he figured he’d been right. The only things in the room were a bed, a nightstand with a book, and Ianto and Jack themselves. That was it. Nothing else.

“You live here?” came out of Jack’s mouth before he could stop it.

Ianto frowned. “Yes. I thought you knew that.”

“I did,” Jack said. “I do.”

Ianto sent him an odd glance.

“Look,” Jack said, ready to move on already, “I just came down to check if you were okay.”

“I’m… fine,” Ianto said. He didn’t look it. He looked slightly disconcerted, if anything.

“You missed coffee this morning.” And didn’t that just make Jack sound like a good boss… or… god, were they friends? If so, Jack wasn’t very good at being one, evidently.

“I know. And I’m sorry,” Ianto added quickly. “But… I’ve… run into a spot of difficulty.”

Jack scowled. “What do you mean?”

“It’s… just…” Ianto shifted. “Well, it’s just… I’ve run out of clothes…”

Jack blinked.

“You what?” he asked.

Ianto pointed to Jack’s right, and Jack turned to see a pile (albiet, a very neat, folded pile) of clothes near the corner of the room.

“Ran out yesterday,” Ianto said. “And… I’m not sure what to do.”

Jack stared at the pile. He supposed he really was an awful boss and friend, if he hadn’t bothered to think about this. Ianto had been here for over three weeks—surely, he’d run out of Owen’s old, ruined clothes and the clothes they’d dredged up from the Archives by now. And it wasn’t as if Ianto knew how to wash the clothes, or as if they even had something to wash his clothes with here. Unless he wanted to stand at a sink and scrub them with dish soap (which they might not even have).

“Ianto,” Jack said. “You should have just _said_.”

“I didn’t want to be a bother,” Ianto said.

Jack rolled his eyes. “You’re not a bother. And, as much as I like the idea of a Naked Thursday, you deserve the basic necessity of clothes.”

He inhaled deeply and surveyed Ianto.

“Are those what you’ve been sleeping in?” Jack asked.

Ianto glanced down at his tracksuit bottoms and stained white t-shirt.

“Yes?” he said.

Jack nodded. “Good enough. Come on. We’re going to get you clothes.”

“What?”

“It’s time you stopped living in worn-out denim that doesn’t even fit you,” Jack said, grabbing his arm and pulling him out into the hall. “You deserve your own clothes.”

Jack managed to get him up to the main Hub and was prepared to announce he was going out and taking Ianto with him, but Toshiko was already cutting over him.

“Jack?” she called. “Remember the Sovarians?”

“Yeah,” he said, hiking up the steps to her desk. “Why?”

“Just got a call from the police,” she said. She tapped a computer screen, which displayed a map of Roath Park. “Sightings of blue cat-people asking for directions.”

“I thought we told them off about that a month ago,” Jack said, frowning. “Humans don’t know the way to whatever lost planet.”

“Evidently, they forgot,” she said.

“Right.” Jack studied her computer screen for a moment longer, then stood took action. “Okay, Owen?”

“What,” Owen grumped, emerging from his autopsy room.

“You and me. Roath Park,” Jack said.

“Bloody fucking—do I _have_ to?”

“Toshiko,” Jack said, ignoring him. “You’re going to take Ianto shopping.”

“What?” she asked.

“He’s out of clothes,” Jack explained.

Toshiko glanced over to Ianto, who blushed faintly pink.

“Why me?” Tosh asked. “I don't know anything about shopping for clothes. That’s just stereotype.”

“Look, unless you want to spend four hours convincing the Sovarians yet again that we can’t help them…”

“Nope,” she said instantly. “I’d rather shop.”

“You really don’t _have_ to,” Ianto said.

Toshiko cringed. “That’s not what I meant, Ianto. I’m just… not the girly-girl who knows about shopping.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Jack said, looking down at her impractically heeled shoes.

“They were on sale,” she mumbled.

“Great,” Jack said. “Go get him some trousers on sale.”

Toshiko began to shut down her computers, and Jack motioned for Owen to follow him out.

Jack thought he’d been rounding up when he’d said four hours, but, in reality, he was rounding down. By a _lot_. Sovarians were not known for their common sense or practicability. Jack had to give the same speech _seven_ times before one of them suddenly, out of nowhere (imagine that!), came up with the _same exact_ _point_ themselves and told it to the group. Then they departed almost instantly. Owen was bitchy about it the entire way back to the Hub. Jack himself had to refrain from yelling at the particularly slow old woman driving in front of them.

Needless to say, Jack was in a fairly horrid mood and had completely forgotten about the happenings of earlier that morning. So, when Owen stepped one foot on the other side of the cog door to the Hub and blatantly stated “what the fuck,” Jack was just about ready to lose it.

Until, that was, he saw Ianto waiting with coffee. In a suit.

“Well,” Jack said. And that was it, because he didn’t have anything else to say. But he did gawk a little. Ianto in suits… well…

“Coffee,” Ianto said.

He handed a mug to Owen, who took it with another muttered “what the fuck,” then disappeared back to his autopsy room.

“Sir,” Ianto said. He tried handing over Jack’s coffee, but Jack was still trying to wrap his head around the suits.

“Sir?” Jack asked when his brain kicked back in. “What’s with the ‘sir?’”

“Well,” Ianto said. “They always called the director ‘sir’ back in London, so I figured…”

“This isn’t London,” Jack reminded him. “Wait, is that where the suit came from?”

Ianto looked down at his suit. “I always wanted to wear one.”

“Why?” Jack asked. Surely, Ianto wouldn’t want anything to do with London… not after all those years… right?

“Well, the Archivists always wore suits,” Ianto said. “And if I’d have been an Archivist, I wouldn’t have…”

He hastily cleared his throat.

“And James Bond wears suits,” Ianto said.

“I thought those were tuxedos.”

Ianto glanced sideways for a moment, then back at Jack.

“They’re not the same, are they,” he said.

“Nope,” Jack said.

“Oh.”

“Hang on, James Bond?” Jack asked.

“Toshiko gave me a book,” Ianto said.

“Huh,” Jack said.

“I’ve been reading it, when I have the time,” Ianto said. “Not that I have much time. I either work, or I… pass out.”

Jack scowled, and tried to address that, but Ianto was already moving on.

“But it’s… good.” He gave a half-smile. “Didn’t get to read books, back then.”

“James Bond is also a bunch of movies,” Jack said, because he didn’t really know how to respond otherwise.

“Movies?” Ianto asked, frowning.

“Yeah, like… films. Moving pic—”

“Yes, I know what those are,” Ianto said. “But… they’re books. Why would they be films?”

Jack shrugged. “Beats me.”

With a puzzled look on his face, Ianto finally passed over Jack’s mug.

“I don’t know how to repay you for the suits,” he said.

Jack almost coughed on his coffee, but he managed to swallow instead.

“You don’t,” he said. “They’re yours. If anything, consider it your pay for the past month.”

“Oh,” Ianto said.

He was silent for a moment, brows furrowed in contemplation.

“Does this mean I work here now?” he asked.

“You _have_ been working here.” Jack frowned at him. “What did you think the archiving and the coffee was?”

“I dunno,” Ianto said. “Something to pass the time, I suppose.”

Jack gaped at him momentarily.

“Okay. Well, welcome aboard, Ianto Jones,” Jack said.

Then he stuck out his hand. Ianto looked at it as if it would eat him alive.

“You put yours in it,” Jack said.

Ianto stared at the hand some more, then timidly stuck out his own. Jack reached out and grasped it.

“Then you shake it,” Jack told him, “like this.”

“What _for_?” Ianto asked, bemused as they shook hands.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” Jack said.

Jack dropped Ianto’s hand and Ianto raised it and eyed it with confusion.

“You people make no sense,” he said.

Jack snorted. “Tell me about it.”

* * *

For two months, Weevil activity had been at an all-time low. They either showed up and were vicious enough that they had to be put down on the spot, or they just didn’t come up at all. Owen was getting frustrated by the lack of subjects for his new Weevil study, but Jack was sort of grateful. Weevil hunting had never really been fun for him. Before, back when everyone knew he was Mr Invincible, they’d used him as bait. Now, he just had to either pretend not to die when he is, in fact, dying, or he had to be The Leader, which was never very fun when a Weevil was going to claw someone’s eye out (Owen was still mad about that).

Anyway, there were no Weevils.

And then, all of the sudden, there _were_.

Owen’s hypothesis was either a… well, a Weevil-orgy was how he put it (Jack still thought that was stupid—it had never happened before), or a small Weevil epidemic (which Jack wasn’t too sure about, because they all seemed to be just fine now). He said he’d have a better, more concrete hypothesis when he actually could get his hands on a Weevil; right now, they were all running away just as the SUV pulled up or were still too hostile to take back to the Hub.

As luck would have it, Jack finally got the chance three days into the “Weevil Festival” (name provided by Toshiko) to nab him one.

It was only fifteen minutes after he’d sent Toshiko home after their last Weevil hunt when the alert came again. He nearly sobbed, because the last thing he needed at that moment was a seventh Weevil sighting in in Bute Park that night.

“Fine,” he told himself. “It’s _fine_. One more Weevil. That’s all.”

“Sir?”

“Christ,” Jack said, whipping around. “Ianto? How the hell—don’t sneak up on me.”

“Sorry, sir,” Ianto said.

“You really don’t have to call me ‘sir,’” Jack reminded him for the umpteenth time.

Ianto shrugged unconcernedly.

“Where is everyone?” Jack asked instead of arguing the point further.

“Home,” Ianto said. “They left after Toshiko.”

Jack mentally listed off a few curses.

“Shall I call someone back in?” Ianto asked.

“No, that’ll take too long—hang on,” Jack said. “Can you even _use_ a phone?”

“It’s not that hard to learn,” Ianto said.

“Fair point.” Jack remembered Rose sitting him down and teaching him about her mobile. Good times. He still half-wished he was still in them. “But it’s no use. By the time they come back, the Weevil will have eaten someone or run away.”

“You can’t take it on by yourself,” Ianto said pointedly.

“No, but I might—”

Jack cut himself off again, surveying Ianto carefully. Ianto fidgeted slightly under his gaze, but ultimately didn’t wither under it. Good. Jack could use someone with a good bit of confidence right now. Even if the confidence was false (Jack could never be sure when Ianto was faking anything; that was, assuming Ianto ever faked anything, anyway…), it would still be useful.

“Ianto,” he said. “How’d you feel about some good old Weevil hunting?”

Ianto blanched.

After a good five minutes of needless fretting from Ianto, they were on their way. Ianto kept checking the canister of Weevil spray that Jack had given him. He’d once nearly sprayed it in his own face, but other than that, Jack had full confidence in him. Or mostly just full confidence that he would at least know which end the canister sprayed out of when the time came to use it.

“Out,” Jack ordered the very instant he parked.

Ianto hopped obediently out of the SUV, then stopped dead.

“It’s… dark,” Ianto said.

“Yes,” Jack said. “That’s what happens at night.”

“How the hell are we supposed to see the bloody thing, then?”

“Owen’s getting to your language,” Jack said. “Come on.”

Ianto muttered something along the lines of, “I’ve always known how to curse,” under his breath. Jack smirked to himself as he led Ianto into the dark.

“Oh, he’s big,” Ianto said the very instant they found the Weevil.

Jack shushed him, dragging him behind a tree.

“Sorry,” Ianto whispered. “But he is, you know, rather large.”

“Actually, he’s pretty runty for a Weevil,” Jack said.

“What?”

Jack was beginning to minorly regret not showing Ianto what a Weevil was before he brought him along.

“No alien like that lived in London’s cells,” Ianto said, peering around the trunk. “His head looks… odd.”

“And yours looks odd to him,” Jack said. “Do you have your spray?”

Ianto held the canister aloft.

“Make sure you spray it at the Weevil.”

Ianto rolled his eyes.

In the end, Ianto did _not_ spray it at the Weevil. Oh, no. No, in fact, Ianto dropped the canister almost the instant Jack had them step out from behind the tree, and instead picked up a hefty branch and proceeded to _clobber the Weevil with it_. Jack didn’t know whether to be turned on or afraid. Or both.

“What the hell was that?” Jack asked, staring down at the prone Weevil.

“I… dunno,” Ianto said, sounding vaguely intrigued and impressed by himself. “Never done that before.”

“Well, I’d hope so,” Jack said.

“It was… good.”

Jack shot him a confused glance.

“I’ve never _done_ something,” Ianto said.

“What?” Jack asked.

“Oh, you know.” Ianto gestured at the Weevil. “That was _doing_ something. I mean, other than my job…”

He shrugged.

“It just felt nice, was all,” Ianto said.

“Toshiko’s giving you too many James Bond novels,” Jack said.

Ianto smiled minutely. “She promised me we’d see the films.”

Jack scoffed, then bent down.

“Right, help me get this guy to the car,” Jack said.

Ianto stooped and helped Jack hoist the creature up.

“This feels a lot like the night we got Myfanwy,” Ianto said.

“This isn’t a pet,” Jack warned.

“Oh, so Myfanwy _is_ a pet?”

“The pterodactyl—”

“Pteranodon.”

“The pteranodon,” Jack corrected with a faint glare at Ianto, “is a _guard dog_.”

“If you say so, sir,” Ianto said sarcastically.

Jack was about to retort when he heard a gasp from behind him. Jack nearly sighed but managed to keep it together as he plastered a smile on his face and looked over his shoulder.

“What the _fuck_ ,” the policeman said.

“Drunk friend,” Jack said, forcing levity into his tone. “Couldn’t get him to take his stupid mask off and he passed out.”

“Oh,” the cop said. “Is he the man we got a call about? The one causing problems?”

“Not sure who he’d be causing problems with,” Jack said smoothly. “He’s passed out and nobody’s around here anymore.”

“Right, but—”

“He’s fine,” Jack said. “We’ll take him home and watch over him.”

The cop didn’t look to happy about it, but he let them pass, which was fortunate.

“Thank god he didn’t need Retcon,” Jack said as they loaded the Weevil into the back. “I forgot to restock the SUV’s supply.”

“Retcon?” Ianto said.

“Yeah, it’s like this—”

“No, no,” Ianto said. “I know what Retcon is. London developed their supply based on… well, it doesn’t work on me, so they…”

He trailed off quickly.

“I just didn’t know you had it,” he said.

“We had it first,” Jack said. “I brought it with me.”

Ianto frowned. “But…”

He didn’t finish what he was going to say, which worried Jack slightly. Ianto could do mental maths pretty well, and if he thought too deeply on the matter, he could probably figure out that Jack might have been older than he looked.

“It doesn’t work on you?” Jack asked as a diversion.

“Nope,” Ianto said. “Probably the psychic stuff again.”

“Probably,” Jack agreed.

Owen was not too pleased about the clobbered Weevil the next morning, and said it voided his experiments due to the possible concussion. They had to release Clobby (Toshiko’s name, yet again).

So, the search for a test-worthy Weevil went onward, and Suzie managed to find a distraction, dredged up from the bay in the form of an old medieval gauntlet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the last of the pre-series chapters!  
> Thank you for reading! Have a good day!


	7. Chapter 7

Jack should have known things weren’t going the way they ought to have been solely based on the fact that that Ianto got headaches every time Suzie tested the gauntlet.

It wasn’t like Ianto to get headaches, not unless he was dusting “The Hand,” he told Jack. Jack thought both of those statements were odd, but ultimately brushed it aside. It wasn’t important at the time.

He should have also realised that things were going sideways because everyone was distracted. Owen was too busy wrapped up in getting laid to worry about Weevils, Toshiko was too invested in… whatever else to truly do her job properly, and Suzie was…

Alright. Jack had to admit. The way Suzie had been so enthralled and possessed by this glove might have actually made him a little glad, but only because he was happy she’d finally found a project to keep herself occupied with. But, otherwise, yes, he should have seen that it was a little weird, how _into_ the thing she was.

And he didn’t. Not until it was way, _way_ too late.

To be fair, though, the missteps from Owen and Toshiko didn’t happen until way too late, too. He’d asked Toshiko to clear whatever digital footsteps Gwen Cooper would have left for herself to lead her back to Torchwood, but it was clear that this was not what happened. Gwen Cooper found Torchwood again, and Suzie Costello shot both Jack and herself in the face. And Owen left a perfectly good Weevil lying around to go… Jack really hoped he didn’t do what Jack think he did. Jack held higher standards for his team than _that_.

Then there were all those smaller warning signs along the way, the signs that pointed to instability and obsession in Suzie, the signs that pointed to loss of coherency in the team structure, and the lack of overall work. But Jack had been so absorbed in everything else that even now those signs were muddy and murky, still tangled up in other trivial matters occupying his brain.

Up on the Millennium Centre, he watched Gwen Cooper walk off the Roald Dahl Plass. She was going home. Jack fancied that for a moment—the idea of home and normalcy—but then the moment passed and all he was left with was a speck of a person down below, walking away.

He sighed, feeling his breath curl around the air. So many things to be done now. Pack up Suzie and make room for Gwen. Revitalise team morale. Keep his eyes peeled for the Doctor, as always. Make sure the Weevil didn’t die on the first few days. Ensure that nobody else took things out of the Hub again. So many, many things…

The speck that was Gwen Cooper was gone now. Nobody else was around. Just him, on the rooftop, waiting for some goddamn miracle to save him from his own mess.

For a split second, he considered the gradual slope off of the Millennium Centre. So easy to slide… and slip right off…

Then he shook his head to himself. No. Not a wise move.

With another long sigh, he decided now was as good a time as any to leave the roof, before any more stupid thoughts permeated his still post-death sluggish brain.

The Plass was empty and quiet when he stepped out onto it. No sane person was out and about at these wee hours of the morning. He stood there for a moment, feeling the rising sun on his face and letting the soft breeze filter through his fingers as he closed his eyes. It was colder than a Boeshane morning, but certainly no less splendid. Or so he thought. Boeshane was long ago and far away. Maybe this morning was better, or perhaps far, far worse. He would never know.

“Sir?”

Jack’s eyes snapped back open.

“Ianto,” Jack said, finding him only a few strides away. “What are you doing up here?”

“I was walking,” he said. “I… walk every morning. To see the sunrise.”

Jack wondered how many sunrises Ianto had seen. Jack had seen more than he could count, and Ianto had seen less than probably fit on all fingers and toes.

“It was a good one,” Jack said.

“It was,” Ianto agreed. He looked up, squinting at the roof of the Millennium Centre. “How did you get up there, anyway?”

“You saw me?”

“Hard not to,” Ianto said. “You’re tall.”

Jack let out a laugh.

“Lots of experience,” Jack said. “That’s how I got up there.”

“I see. And does PC Cooper also have that much experience climbing rooves?”

“No idea,” Jack said, grinning. “But I showed her how. Want a tour?”

“No thanks.” Ianto was still squinting up at the roof, his face now contorted into a grimace.

“Scared of heights?” Jack guessed.

“Only when there’s not a forcefield to protect me,” Ianto said smoothly.

Jack gave him a patient, questioning look, which he saw when he finally tore his eyes away from the building.

“My… box,” he said. “It was up on a high plinth. Forcefields all around, encoded to my… DNA, whatever that is. Everyone could get in and out, except for me. No chance of escaping.”

“Or falling,” Jack surmised.

“No,” Ianto said. He looked at the Millennium Centre again and added, very low under his breath, “The world has no box.”

“You could fall at any time,” Jack said. Ianto glanced sharply over to him. “That’s the price you pay for freedom, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is,” Ianto murmured.

“PC Cooper is going to have to learn that pretty quickly,” Jack said.

“So, she’s on, then?” Ianto asked. “You’re… keeping her?”

“She’s not a pet,” Jack said.

Ianto cocked an eyebrow. “Are you sure? You do seem to like your pets.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“She’s not a pet,” Jack reiterated. He sent a mock glare Ianto’s way. “And neither is the new Weevil, either, for that matter.”

“I see.”

“But, yes, she’s staying,” Jack said. “God knows for how long.”

“The average span of a Torchwood agent is five years.” At Jack’s puzzled frown, Ianto explained, “Director Costa’s favourite saying.”

“Morbid thing for him to say,” Jack said.

“But he wasn’t wrong.”

Jack glanced over to the water tower, right where Suzie had shot herself. There was still a dark spot on the pavement. Another thing he’d have to do.

“No,” Jack sighed, “he wasn’t.”

“He also drank too much vodka and said that aliens were all just conniving, cheating bastards,” Ianto said. “So, I suppose you have to learn to take out the bits you should probably ignore.”

Jack laughed. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

“Are _you_ an alien?”

The laugh stopped abruptly, freezing between his teeth.

“What?”

“Not that I’m implying you’re a conniving, cheating bastard,” Ianto said. “Director Costa would, but… I just want to know, that’s all.”

“If I’m an alien,” Jack said, tone ice cold.

Ianto wasn’t fazed.

“You said something about fifty-first century pheromones, back when we got Myfanwy back,” he said, very calmly, very steadily. “I thought it was a joke, at first, but… humans do not come back to life when shot in the forehead.”

“Humans aren’t supposed to be omniscient, either,” Jack snapped back.

Ianto didn’t rise to the bait.

“I’m not omniscient,” was all he said.

Jack was ready to bite out another retort, but instead he took a deep breath in. Suzie really frazzled him last night, but he couldn’t take that out on Ianto. Ianto had done nothing to deserve that.

“So what if I was an alien?” he asked instead.

“I don’t know,” Ianto said, placid as ever. “I suppose I’d wonder why you joined an alien-hunting organisation.”

“What if I was both alien and human? What then?”

“I’d still have the same question,” Ianto said.

“Would it bother you?”

“No more than I bother you.”

Jack’s eyebrows flicked upwards. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. Though it was enough for him to let up, just a little.

“I am human,” he said, “but I’m not from your time, or your planet.”

Ianto just nodded.

“Do all humans learn the secrets of immortality in the fifty-first century, then?”

“What do you think?” Jack asked.

“No,” Ianto said, his eyes surveying Jack’s face. “Where’d be the adventure in that? Humanity would stagnate.”

Jack’s eyebrows raised further.

“I suppose it would,” Jack said.

“So… what happened to you?” Ianto asked. Not condemnatory, Jack noted. He asked it softly and curiously, and as if it actually mattered what the answer was.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I was… I died, and then I was back again.”

“Like… the Bible guy,” Ianto said.

“Jesus Christ?”

“Yeah, him.” Ianto blinked at Jack’s quizzical stare. “What? I was six. I didn’t really care much about going to church. I forgot it all.”

Jack, for whatever reason, laughed, and Ianto himself managed a smile.

“But no, not like Jesus,” Jack said. “Though, fun story, there was a time where I was almost crucified.”

“What?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you about it later. Actually, Owen might want to hear that one,” he added thoughtfully. Owen liked the gross, medical stories, no matter how much he tried to pretend he didn’t.

“So… you’re immortal,” Ianto summarised.

“I suppose,” Jack said. “Though a more apt way to put it would just simply be ‘I can’t die.’”

“But you can. I saw you, on the CCTV. You died,” Ianto accused.

“Well, yes, but I don’t _really_ die. Not in any way that matters.”

“I’d say it matters.”

Jack frowned once more, studying Ianto again as he tried to understand, well, _everything_. Ianto’s eyes lingered on his for a moment, then darted away, facing out towards the morning sun.

“You want it kept secret, don’t you?” he asked.

“Would you keep it?”

Ianto didn’t turn back to him. “I would.”

Jack wanted to ask why, but he already knew the answer. If Ianto had his secrets kept, life would have gone very differently. No need for sunrise walks or suits or coffee. No need for Myfanwy. No need for Torchwood.

“Is PC Cooper going to keep it?” Ianto asked. “She saw you, too.”

“I think so,” Jack said. He pulled a face. “At least, I hope so.”

“She seems nice,” Ianto said after a short pause.

“She seems normal,” Jack said. “That’s what we need. We’ve lost touch with the outside world, Ianto. We need someone from that outside world. Remind us how to live in it.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ianto said lightly. “I’ve never lived in the outside world.”

“Fair point,” Jack said, smiling. “She can teach you how to do the wash.”

Ianto smiled faintly back. “Hey. I do the wash. Someone’s got to clean out your coffee mugs. It’s not going to be you. Or Tosh. Or Su—”

He cut off quickly.

“That’s going to take some getting used to,” he muttered, before moving on, forcing the levity back into his tone. “Anyway, it wouldn’t be Owen, either. I can’t even get him to rinse out his old experiments. How on Earth did you deal with him before I came along?”

“Well, if you leave it all out long enough, he gets all fussy about ‘biohazards’ and ‘contamination,’” Jack said. “So, we just had to not touch any of his things until he got mad and yelled at us for not touching his things.”

“Okay, by the time Owen’s experiments have reached ‘biohazard’ level by his own standards, half of Cardiff would already be dead,” Ianto said pointedly.

“I didn’t say it was a perfect method,” Jack reminded him, “I just said it worked.”

Ianto rolled his eyes.

The slice of his face that Jack could see was illuminated by the sun, shining pearlescently against his soft, pale skin. It was nearly radiant, the glow on him. Jack never got to see that; it was all either cloudy and grim out or pitch dark when he saw Ianto outside. And the lights in the hub never reflected quite right—they made him seem paler than before, which was almost an impossibility, with Ianto. Though Jack was beginning to note the slight variation in tone ever since he’d arrived. It was slow and gradual, but it was there, all framed by fine brown hair and sharp blue eyes and soft boyish cheeks.

Jack opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn’t sure what he had to say. What _was_ there to say? He closed his mouth again and just watched, transfixed, until Ianto turned to him and looked expectantly at him.

“You never asked me if I stole anything,” Ianto said.

“Did you want me to?” Jack asked.

One of Ianto’s eyebrows arched. “For all you know, I could be the artefact-nicking king.”

“Is that so?”

“You did leave me in charge of the Archives,” Ianto pointed out. “I could be stealing left and right.”

“And take them where?”

“Well, that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”

Jack smirked.

“I should have known,” Ianto said.

“What?” Jack asked.

“About Suzie,” Ianto said. “I mean, I knew something was off; I could tell she was… but I didn’t…”

He cut off, biting his lips together and glowering gently at the pavement.

“It’s not your fault,” Jack told him. “It’s nobody’s fault.”

“I have… all this shit,” he said, “so what good is it if I can’t even predict _this_?”

“It’s not your fault,” Jack repeated sternly. “The fate of the world doesn’t rest on your shoulders.”

Ianto was silent for a long while, and when he finally spoke up again, it was to ask, “When does PC Cooper start?”

Jack kept a sigh to himself. “Whenever we’re ready for her. Might be sooner than I expect. But I told her two days.”

“The world could be ending before two days are done,” Ianto said, rather wisely.

“Good,” Jack said. “She can learn how unconventional our hours are.”

* * *

Jack ended up calling Gwen in roughly twelve hours before he had promised. And he was fairly certain she was out to dinner. Was he bothered by that? No. Should he maybe have waited and explained a few things before sticking her right into the field? Alright, sure, he probably should have, but that wasn’t what he did, so it wasn’t as if it mattered. If Jack stopped and felt guilty for every “what if” and “I should have done,” he would be sitting around and feeling like shit for a very long time.

What he could do, though, was attempt to smooth over the rough edges.

“Could you order breakfast?” he asked Toshiko.

“What, now?” She glanced at the clock on one of her computer screens. “It’s nearly eight. Can’t we just go home?”

“You know the drill,” Jack said. “Forms to fill. Agencies to call. That sort of stuff.”

“We don’t _have_ to,” she grumbled, but she reached for her mobile anyway. “What would you like?”

“Pastries.”

Jack glanced behind him to find Ianto standing behind them.

“Gwen wants pastries,” he said.

“Okay…” Jack said slowly. He looked at Toshiko. “Pastries sound good?”

“Whatever, Jack,” she said tiredly. “I just want to go home soon.”

“You’ll get to,” he promised her. “After breakfast, some coffee—” he gave Ianto a questioning eyebrow, and Ianto nodded “—and finished paperwork.”

“Fine,” she sighed, and started dialling.

Thirty minutes later, Jack was stuffing his face with a _viennoiserie_ , Ianto was eyeing a croissant for the first time in his life, Toshiko and Owen were silently glaring at each other for stealing the wrong type of strudel from each other, and Gwen was surveying them all as she picked at her pain au chocolat.

“So, this is it, what happens after a… thing, then?” Gwen asked.

“Breakfast?” Jack asked.

“Well, yes,” she said. “But you’re all so—”

“Tired,” Owen finished for her. “We’re tired, and we want to go to bed, but somebody had to cock up something as simple as—”

He shut his mouth as Jack and Toshiko glared at him.

“I am sorry,” Gwen said. “Really.”

“We know,” Jack said. “And it’s been over a day, so I think we all can learn to _move on_.”

Owen’s eyebrows flickered upward once, but he didn’t say anything.

“What do we do for Carys, though?” Gwen asked.

“We sent her home,” Jack said, confused.

“Yes, but…” She pressed her lips together, forming her thoughts. “Just… shouldn’t we do something for her? She’s not going to forget about this.”

“She could,” Jack offered.

“That’s not what I meant,” Gwen said. “I meant… how is she going to live with this? It’s not entirely her fault, what happened. So… I dunno. Shouldn’t we try to help her get through it?”

“She’ll be alright,” Ianto said.

Gwen frowned. “How do you know?”

“Just do.” He held up his croissant. “How am I supposed to eat this? With a fork?”

“Just bite into it,” Toshiko told him.

He frowned at the pastry, then bit it. Jack watched him eat with vague interest. It had long gotten past the point where it was exciting to watch Ianto eat something new. Now it was just sort of like an event everyone attended because they had nothing else to do.

“It’s dry,” he said after he finished.

“It’s a bit stale,” Tosh admitted. “This isn’t the freshest bakery in Cardiff.”

“Sorry,” Gwen said, “but have you never had a croissant before?”

Ianto set the pastry down and glanced briefly to Jack. Nobody had bothered to explain to Gwen about Ianto. Jack wasn’t entirely sure how to begin.

“No,” Ianto replied succinctly, and that was it.

“Oh.”

“But Carys will be fine,” Ianto continued. “She’ll forget about it in about three years. And she’ll go to counselling. Sort of.”

“How can you know that?” Gwen reiterated.

“I know everything,” Ianto said. Then he smiled, mostly to himself.

“Ianto has ‘psychic abilities,’” Owen said, throwing in the quotation marks with sarcastic fingers. “Which means he’s shit to play cards with.”

“I didn’t cheat,” Ianto said, scowling.

“He can’t have,” Gwen said. “Psychic abilities, I mean. That’s… that’s not real, is it?”

Ianto paused mid-bite of croissant.

“Come on,” Owen said. “You’ve seen aliens. What’s wrong with Ianto?”

Ianto’s brows knit together.

“Everything changes, Gwen,” Jack reminded her.

She looked at him, eyes wide and lost, while Ianto kept looking down at the table, eyes narrowed and empty. Jack wasn’t sure who he was supposed to pander to—the person who needed knowledge or the person who wanted to be left alone.

“Right,” Jack said after a moment. “I have a few calls to make.”

Then he stuffed the rest of his pastry in his mouth and got up, figuring he could trust the gossip to freely flow from Toshiko and Owen.

Sure enough, the second he left, he heard Ianto begging off to go make another pot of coffee, and then the hushed whispers from Owen and Tosh as they laid everything out for Gwen.

Jack hadn’t been lying; he did have calls he needed to place. He started with the police to notify them that the cases of the vaporised people were closed, that it was all a sham—no people were _actually_ vaporised. The police were gullible enough to buy into the falsehood, and then he called whatever idiots were still left at the crash site to tell them to scram.

When he’d finished with that, there was a knock on his door. He waited for Ianto to enter, then raised a quizzical eyebrow as Ianto set a mug of coffee on his desk and stood there.

“Something I can do for you?” Jack asked.

Ianto just studied Jack’s face.

“I didn’t know Owen could scan from the cells,” he said lightly when the silence had gone on for long enough.

“Something new he’s been testing,” Jack said. “For the Weevils. Don’t think anyone’s too keen on getting in the cell with our newest resident.”

Ianto pulled a thoughtful face. “She does seem to be a bit… skittish.”

“She’ll even out,” Jack said.

“Might take time.”

“It might,” Jack agreed. “But she’ll get used to us sooner or later.”

“Maybe it wasn’t so wise, bringing her here without letting her adjust beforehand.”

“Where else could she go? It isn’t as though we could leave her there and pick her up later. That’s not how it works.”

“No, I suppose not,” Ianto said.

“No,” Jack agreed softly, starting to wonder who they were really talking about.

They watched each other for a moment. 

“What do you think about Gwen?” Jack asked eventually.

“Naïve,” Ianto said automatically. “But anyone would be.”

“She doesn’t know Torchwood just yet,” Jack said, “but she knows the real world. That’s more than the rest of us. She could give us a sense of normalcy.”

“It’s Torchwood,” Ianto said. “Do we need normalcy?”

“If we don’t want a repeat of Suzie,” Jack said, “then yes. And she’ll connect us to the real world.”

“The real world,” Ianto repeated.

“The real world, where people that we protect live.” Jack sighed. “We’ve spent so long down here that we don’t remember what it’s like, up there.”

“Some of us more than others,” Ianto said.

“Exactly,” Jack said. He frowned. “I think I’m talking in circles. Didn’t we have this conversation before?”

“Yes,” Ianto said. “Twice now. Once on the Plass and once last night, when we were eating.”

“That’s right,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Your chopstick skills have gotten better, by the way.”

“Oh. Thank you,” Ianto said, looking a bit thrown by the sudden change in topic.

“Though I take it you didn’t much like the croissant.”

“It was fine,” Ianto said. He frowned. “This isn’t what we’re supposed to be talking about.”

“Well. You could talk to Gwen about it,” Jack said, very carefully. “I’m certain she has lots to say about normal things. Like lasagne and wine or boyfriends and flats.”

Ianto blinked.

“Yes, I believe that was also mentioned up on the Plass,” he said.

Jack held back a sigh. “I suppose so.”

They lapsed into silence once more, but this time Ianto broke it before Jack could.

“Coffee,” he said, gesturing to the mug he’d placed on Jack’s desk. “I’ll let you get back to work now.”

Then he escaped through the door, leaving Jack somewhat confused about the entire encounter. He pulled the mug to himself, frowned at it, then took a sip, returning to the work he still had to finish.

By the time he was through with his phone calls and paperwork, it was well past midday. By the looks of things, everyone had gone home. Jack shuffled through some of the papers on Owen’s desk, then meandered past Toshiko’s desk and turned the last few monitors off. Ianto was nowhere in sight, but there was a movement out of the corner of his eye, moving through the doorway toward the cells and Archives. Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and followed the figure.

He didn’t expect to find Gwen standing in the space between his office and the alcove, taking down the pictures of Carys she’d stuck to the window earlier. He folded his arms.

“Still here?” he asked.

Gwen looked at him.

“Everybody else is off doing whatever it is they do when they’re not here,” he went on.

“How long you been there?” she asked.

He shrugged, and she set aside some papers.

“I wanted to finish off,” she said.

Of course she did. Everyone at Torchwood was sucked in almost instantly. It was a drug, this place. Even those stuck on the worst trip couldn’t let go of it. Ianto couldn’t. Owen couldn’t. Toshiko _wouldn’t_. Jack never even wanted to consider it.

“Do one thing for me,” he said to her. “Don’t let the job consume you. You have a life. Perspective. We need that.”

“Who are you, Jack?” she asked, hands on hips and tone skimming accusatory.

“I’m sorry?”

“You can’t die. You tell me the twenty first century is when it all changes, that we have to be prepared…”

“So you do,” Jack said, taking the steps up to her.

“But how can you know?” she demanded.

“You think knowing the answers would make you feel better?” Didn’t make him feel better. Didn’t make Ianto feel better.

“Who are you?” she asked softly. “What are you doing here?”

“Go home, Gwen Cooper,” he told her. “Eat lasagne, kiss your boyfriend, be normal. For me.”

And for Owen, and for Toshiko, who ignored the concept. For Suzie, who lost her grip and forgot about it. For Ianto, who had never known “normal” and likely never would. For all of Torchwood and the world, so that the two could combine with less disastrous consequences.

Gwen looked at him, doe eyes and all, then set down her papers and went silently.

Jack watched her go, then headed to check out the hand. Evidently, it could still give Ianto a headache, but he had to be sure that it was still… well… he needed it to work. He needed to find the Doctor again.

* * *

Gwen was sitting on the sofa by herself after their talk. Jack wasn’t sure why. Maybe she just needed some alone time. Jack could respect that.

Maybe.

Sort of.

Alright, no, he couldn’t. He stood up from his spot in the conference room (which he was meant to be setting up) and opened the door but found Ianto already making his way to Gwen. Curious, Jack opened the door to hear what they were saying, then sat back down and watched them with intrigue.

“Oh,” Gwen said. She swiped at her face. Was she crying again? “Hello, Ianto.”

Ianto came to a halt at the end of the sofa, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, I’m alright, thanks,” she said.

Ianto nodded, then made for the stairs to the catwalk. Jack sat back in his chair, disappointed by that, until Gwen called out, so softly Jack barely heard her, “Ianto?”

Ianto stopped and turned, waiting expectantly for Gwen to finish.

“You can… see the future, right?” she asked.

“Not always,” he said. “Sometimes I wish but… it’s not like that.”

“That’s what Owen said.” She clasped her hands on her knees and looked up at him. “Did you know?”

“No,” Ianto said, and Jack thought back to a few weeks before, to a similar train of thought from Ianto. “If I did…”

“I thought so.” She bit her lips and looked at her hands. “If you did… could you be sure it was the future? Not just… a possibility?”

“I don’t know,” Ianto said. He stepped away from the stairs, back to the sofa. “I don’t think I’d know more than I _knew_ … if that makes any sense.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

She didn’t respond, merely continuing to look at her folded hands. Jack knew that phantom blood feel. It never went away easily. The warm, wet stickiness stayed in the mind, and it was impossible not to feel it drenching one's hands and oozing down ones arms and soaking to the bones of ones fingers when one lie awake at night, feeling all of those things and dreaming all of those nightmares. Gwen had a lot to deal with now.

“But I know this,” Ianto offered after a moment.

Gwen glanced up at him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “I don’t know if that… maybe it doesn’t make a difference, but I thought… you should know.”

“Thank you.”

Jack didn’t hear her say that—she was too soft-spoken—but he watched the words on her lips and the emotions on her face. Ianto nodded once in reply, and that was seemingly all.

“Do you live here, too?” Gwen asked after a moment.

“Sorry?”

“Jack,” she said, and Jack’s intrigue immediately jumped a level. “He says he lives here. And I can’t help but think… do you even know a flat is like?”

“No,” Ianto said. “Never been in one.”

“Oh,” Gwen said, voice dipping into sympathised sorrow at the end. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he said with a shrug. “Can’t change it now.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t suppose you can.”

“Can’t change much after it’s already happened.”

Gwen glanced to her hands again.

“I have a flat,” she said. “I mean… it’s not much… but there’s me and Rhys and wine and lasagne and a telly… so I guess it’s alright.”

“Just alright?”

A smile twitched on Gwen’s lips. “Oh, fine. I suppose it’s more than just ‘alright.’”

“I’m sure it’s nice,” he said.

“It is. And so’s the pasta,” she added. “Rhys does some really nice pasta. Spag bol and lasagne. Pesto. Alfredo. Scampi. He loves pasta.”

“I only know what a few of those are,” Ianto admitted. “Scampi… prawn?”

“Sort of,” she said.

Ianto shrugged. “That’s all I got.”

“I could bring in leftovers sometime,” she suggested. “That’s all I eat anymore. Takeout and leftovers.”

“Torchwood runs an odd schedule.”

“Makes me miss home sometimes,” she said. “Makes me miss Rhys.”

“Mm,” he hummed noncommittally.

“Do you ever get lonely, down here?” she asked. “In the dark and the quiet?”

“Not really,” Ianto said. “I used to live almost completely alone. Just me and a guard. And anyway, the quiet is never really… quiet. There’s always something up here.”

He tapped the side of his head, gave a pathetic smile, then dropped his hand to his side. Gwen gave him a pitying look, reaching out a little to comfort him, then thinking twice about it and withdrawing. Wise of her. Ianto didn’t like much touch. Jack realised with some intrigue that even he didn’t touch Ianto much, and he was a tactile man by nature. Then again, he supposed he did also respect boundaries by nature, too, so maybe there wasn’t much to think about there.

“I’m sure someday, you’ll have a nice, big flat,” Gwen said after a beat. “With a good coffee machine and space to be… not lonely.”

Ianto gave the barest hint of a smile. “That’d be nice.”

Gwen smiled back.

Well, Jack figured, that was one person down the track to normalcy. Just three more and a lot of time left to go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!


	8. Chapter 8

Ianto, for whatever reason, proclaimed he had a weird feeling when Jack and the rest finished their rather frightful game of basketball. Jack, who had just been about to toss the basketball and leave with the others for a pub, frowned, then put the pub night on hold. The last time Ianto had felt one of those “weird feelings,” there’d been a fleet of Kreetassans were halfway descended upon Radyr. However, this time, Jack and the team trailed Ianto all the way through the Archives to one odd room that he stood in for a short while, then declared the feeling had passed. By then, someone had called in some UFO sighting (just an Arkan leisure crawler, fortunately), and by the time that was all cleared up, nobody was up for a pub night anymore. And _just_ when Jack had finally decided to join in on one, too… That was his luck right there, wasn’t it?

Jack shut down Owen’s computers and tapped his fingers on the desk. He was buzzing with energy. Why, he wasn’t sure, but he felt on edge at the moment. Maybe Ianto had been right about his weird feeling…

“Sir?”

Jack froze internally for a partial of a second, then let out a huff of laughter.

“Ianto,” Jack said, turning around. “Didn’t see you there.”

Knowing Ianto, of course, that had probably been intentional.

“Sorry,” Ianto said. He didn’t say anything else.

“Was there something you wanted?” Jack asked.

“I—yes,” he said.

“Alright, then…” Jack said patiently after Ianto fell into another silence. “What is it?”

“It’s… um…”

Ianto held up a slip of paper inserted between his two fingers instead of continuing with words. Jack glanced between it and Ianto expectantly, folding his arms.

Ianto budged a little. “It’s… my sister.”

“The paper is your sister,” Jack stated.

Ianto rolled his eyes. “You know it’s not.”

“Well,” Jack said pointedly, raising an eyebrow.

Ianto took a moment to look abashed, then cleared his throat and twitched the paper slightly.

“Rhiannon Davies,” Ianto said. “That’s what she goes by, now.”

“What’s on the paper?” Jack asked, instead of responding. “Her address?”

Ianto nodded.

“I just… was wondering,” he said haltingly, “if you wouldn’t mind… someday…”

“Taking you to visit her?” Jack finished for him as his voice tapered off once more.

He nodded again, brusque and awkward.

“Alright,” Jack said.

“Thank you.”

“Yep.”

Jack held out his hand. Ianto stared at it like it was some foreign object trying to eat his tie.

“The paper, Ianto,” Jack explained gently.

“Huh?”

“Hand the paper over.”

Ianto blinked. Then he looked at the paper, then the hand, then the paper, then finally up at Jack.

“Why?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I can’t get to her if I don’t have her address, now, can I?”

“We’re going now?” Ianto asked. “I just meant sometime in the future. It doesn’t have to be… _now_.”

“Well, why not now?” Jack gestured vaguely around. “Seems like the perfect time to me.”

“But… it’s… dark,” Ianto said lamely.

“The sun went down… maybe twenty minutes ago. It’s not even seven,” Jack said. “Sounds like a good time for a visit to me.”

Ianto didn’t look convinced.

“When else would were you thinking?” Jack asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Sometime soon. Just. Not now.”

“Toshiko predicts the Rift to get busy this week,” Jack said.

“Right, well, sometime after, then.”

Jack bit back a sigh. “You’re still trying to put this off, aren’t you?”

“No,” Ianto said defensively.

“Get your coat,” Jack said, reaching forward to snatch the paper from between Ianto’s fingers. “We’re going.”

Ianto studied him for a moment, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed, then pivoted on a heel and walked off, hands tucked in his pockets and body tense. Jack watched him go. He understood, a little. He was about ready to find Gray any time now, but was he really _ready_? If he could choose which second he’d find his brother again, would he be able to? Or would he spend forever deliberating over which moment would be _exactly_ the right time to see him again?

He shook his head. It didn’t matter now. Now, he needed his coat and the keys to the SUV.

Ianto was staring at the SUV when Jack joined him. He fiddled with his tie, then dropped his hands to his side. Then he fiddled with his tie again, and then dropped his hands again. Jack noted with a raised eyebrow that the tie got further and further from its correct spot each time he adjusted it.

“In,” Jack ordered, getting into the vehicle himself.

Ianto visibly forced himself to relax, then slid into the passenger seat. Jack waited as he buckled slowly, clicking it into place and moving his hands to not-so-gently grip his knees. Jack debated saying something, but he couldn’t settle on _what_ , so he merely shrugged internally and started the car.

The address was for somewhere in an estate—the Cromwell council estate in Newport, more specifically. Long move from Cardiff, Jack supposed. But maybe that was the point. Jack fled as soon as he could, too. The emptiness of a dead father and a lost brother hung over a person heavily. Jack couldn’t blame Rhiannon if she couldn’t stand the vacuity.

Or maybe her husband was just from that area. Not everything was a damn ocean. Some things were just a puddle: shallow and kind of meaningless.

“So,” Jack said roughly fifteen minutes into the drive. “Your sister.”

“Rhiannon,” Ianto said. He sounded off. Jack glanced at him and saw the bouncing leg. Jitters. Understandable. Jack thought nothing more of it.

“When did you last see her?”

“I was six,” Ianto said. “It was… that morning. She was eating toast. With jam and butter, even though…”

“Yes?” Jack prompted when he stopped.

“Even though Mum didn’t like it when we did that,” Ianto murmured. “She thought it was a waste. Butter _and_ jam?”

“And then?”

“And then I went to school and…”

The pause was long. Jack looked away from the road long enough to see the barren nothingness in Ianto’s eyes.

“…and I got sent away because I knew too much,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry,” Jack told him, as sincere as he could be.

“Why?” he asked. “It’s not your fault.”

Jack wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, either, but then decided it wasn’t in anyone’s best interests and let it lie.

The rest of the trip was filled with silence, only broken once by Jack’s remark that the SUV would need to be cleaned soon (he could feel an empty can of _something_ rolling around and bumping into his foot every now and then). Ianto had only nodded and stared out of the front windscreen.

Jack circled once through the Cromwell estate and evidently missed the place, because he didn’t see house number twenty-five until the second go around. Jack parked the SUV and eyed the place momentarily, unsure of what to say. Then he turned to Ianto.

“Fix your tie,” was all he could come up with after a moment.

Ianto’s hands, ever-so-slightly fluttering with anxiety, crept up to his neck and adjusted his tie yet again. This time, he managed to correct it (or, at the very least, make it look less unkempt than before), so Jack nodded encouragingly at him.

Jack reached for his door the same time as Ianto yanked open his own, so it was safe to assume Ianto was ready to get it over with.

They walked down the thin path to the house. Jack started taking things in as they went—the house, conjoined to number twenty-three, was some darker colour than the evidently sheer-white exterior of its neighbour. Jack couldn’t parse which exact colours in the dark, but he assumed it was some shade of red. A lonely kitchen playset sat next to the front door, slowly growing its own dirt. A hanging plant draped above it, though whatever had been in it was long dead.

The moment they stopped in front of the door, Ianto’s hands jumped back up to his tie. Jack pointedly cleared his throat, and the hands dropped away before they messed the tie up again. While Jack didn’t mind nervous fidgeting, he knew Ianto would probably rather not look dishevelled when he met his sister again for the first time in eighteen years.

As Ianto appeared to be paralysed with anxiety, Jack raised a hand to knock on the door. Before his knuckles even tapped the door, Ianto quickly turned to him.

“What do I _say_?” he hissed.

“Just say hello,” Jack said calmly.

“Yes, but what after?”

Jack sighed. “You’re Ianto Jones and you’re her brother. It’s nothing complicated. Just be yourself.”

“Easy for you to say,” Ianto muttered below his breath, but he turned back to the door anyway.

Jack shook his head to himself and knocked on the door.

He wasn’t going to lie, he had been half expecting this Rhiannon to be right at the door, waiting for them. Obviously, she wasn’t, because it wasn’t as if she’d known they were coming. Jack briefly wondered what a phone call with her would have been like. “Hello, I’m Captain Jack Harkness. I’ve found your brother and I’m bringing him over. Have the tea ready. See you soon!” Jack cringed internally at the stupidity of it.

Jack was just about to knock on the door again when he heard footsteps coming from the other side. Ianto must have heard them, too, because he instantly froze, an expression of mild terror welded to his face.

The first thing Jack thought when the door opened was, huh. The second thing he thought was that this woman and Ianto didn’t look very much alike. The third thing was that, well, at least they had the same hair colour. And then he snapped out of it as she began to scan them up and down confusedly.

“Rhiannon Davies?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “and who the hell are you?”

“I’m Captain Jack Harkness,” Jack said.

Rhiannon eyed him suspiciously, but then turned to Ianto and waited. Ianto, who was still frozen stock-still beside Jack, said nothing.

“Well?” Rhiannon said after a moment. “You are?”

Ianto opened his mouth, and it worked silently for a moment.

“Hello,” he managed at last. “I’m Ianto Jones, and I’m your brother.”

Jack held in a sigh. He supposed he only had himself to blame for that one, really.

Rhiannon Davies did not like the sound of that one bit. She drew herself up, rage flaring across her face.

“I don’t know who you are or what you think you’re playing at,” she spat, “but it isn’t funny. Go find someone else to taunt.”

Jack was a bit shocked at that reaction, but it seemed to snap Ianto out of his petrified stance.

“Wait!” he said as Rhiannon tried to shut the door on them.

The door paused, just a hairsbreadth from snapping shut.

“Kevin Baker,” Ianto said quickly. “You kissed him, and I watched, and you made me promise not to tell.”

The door opened slightly, revealing Rhiannon’s shocked (and still suspicious) face.

“Otherwise,” Ianto continued, “you said you’d flush Trevor down the toilet.”

Jack remembered Trevor the not-guard fish and tried not to think about what Ianto had said about him. Some suspicions were best left not fully realised.

“Oh my god,” Rhiannon said. “You’re really…”

She pressed her lips together, brows furrowed deeply as she let the door swing the rest of the way open. Jack looked between her and Ianto expectantly, but the only move made by either of them was Ianto anxiously flexing his hands open and closed.

Jack cleared his throat, drawing attention to himself. Rhiannon and Ianto’s heads swivelled to him synchronously. If Jack hadn’t been expecting that, it would have been kind of freaky. And not in the good way.

“Could we talk inside?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Rhiannon said, snapping out of whatever reverie she and Ianto were stuck in. “Of course. Come in.”

She stood aside and Jack stepped into the house. There was a dark stairwell right there, and Jack peered up it for a moment, then forward into the rest of the house. Ianto filed in behind him and the area became cramped, so Jack shrugged and kept going forward, assuming the faintly-lit orange room was where he should be going.

“So, um,” Rhiannon said as they stood in the large space that Jack presumed to be a kitchen, dining, _and_ sitting room all in one. “Tea?”

“That’d be nice,” Jack said, because Ianto didn’t say anything at all.

“You can just sit… there,” Rhiannon said.

She gestured to a table full of pamphlets and boxes and large envelopes. Jack sat down in the chair that had some sort of dried residue on the side so that Ianto could have the cleaner chair next to it. They left the two chairs on the side closer to the kitchen empty. Jack mildly wondered if that was by habit—quickest route to escape from these chairs. He brushed it aside. Not important.

Rhiannon started the tea and Jack began taking in the quaintly decorated room. Only one wall was a ghastly shade of orange, and it was lit by lamps that cast a softer orange glow onto it. There was an iron on the kitchen counter and pantry items everywhere. The refrigerator was covered in magnets, some holding up bundles of papers (like the giant strawberry) and others not (like the one reading “Cymru” in red and “WALES” in green below). False plants lived everywhere. For some reason, there was also a large tropical fish decoration hanging from the wall. And Jack wasn’t much for décor, but he knew that one of those drapes was far less revolting than the other. Overall, the place was just… eclectic.

Jack’s eyes roamed down to the pamphlets on the table—advertising some weight loss product in large white print over a hideous pink background—then back up as Rhiannon sat three mugs down on the table.

“Sugar?” she asked. “Milk?”

“No, thanks,” Ianto said quietly as he reached for a mug.

“Same,” Jack said, grabbing another.

Rhiannon shrugged, sitting down in one of the vacant chairs across from them. She pulled her tea into her hands and stared at it for a while.

“So,” she said slowly, looking back up. “You’re… Ianto.”

“Yep,” Ianto said. Jack’s eyebrow flickered up at the popped _p_.

“It’s… been a while,” Rhiannon said.

“Yep,” Ianto repeated.

“Eighteen years.”

“…yep.”

Jack took a sip of his tea, covering his urge to laugh with the mug. God, this was already turning into a disaster.

“Are you…” Rhiannon made a face, then tried again. “Are you better, then?”

Jack nearly choked on his tea. Oh, no. What was that word? Jinx? Yeah. That.

“What do you mean?” Ianto asked, frowning.

“Well, they wouldn’t let you out if you weren’t better,” she said, speculation and accusation mingling in her tone. “Right?”

“Better?”

“Yeah, like… all fixed up,” she said. “All right again in your head."

It seemed to dawn slowly on Ianto, and it wasn’t pleasant to watch.

“All… right... in my head,” he said.

“Yeah,” Rhiannon said. “All sorted out, and stuff.”

Ianto stared at her for a good moment.

“Rhiannon,” he said measuredly, tone nearing desperate, “where do you think I was?”

“I dunno,” she replied. “Some institute. I dunno the name, Mum and Dad never said.”

“Alright,” Ianto said. “But why?”

_“Why?”_

“Yes. Why do you think I was there?”

“Christ, Ianto!” she exclaimed. She had an emotion on her face Jack couldn’t pin down. “You weren’t right, and all that! You kept _saying_ things.”

“Do you remember what they were?” he asked. “The things I said?”

“Jesus, it was so long ago! Do you honestly expect me to remember exactly what you said?”

“I told you that Molly Sidwell from the year above you was snogging Dean Fitch, before anyone else knew about it, because you asked me,” Ianto said, and Rhiannon’s face went almost slack with horror. “And you told Mum.”

“Because that wasn’t _right_!”

Rhiannon was shouting then. Jack bent his head down and wished he’d stayed in the car. Old Earth’s dealings with mental health were… abysmal, at best. Jack never kidded around when he said this place was “backwater.” By his century’s standards, this was well beyond backwater. It was whatever backwater’s evil twin was.

“That’s not _normal_ , Ianto,” Rhiannon carried on. “That’s… screws loose, you know? That’s why they put you in there. So you could get better.”

Ianto regarded her for a while longer, then looked down at his hands, folded on the table.

“Yeah,” he said after an agonising pause. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Jack hid a grimace behind his mug, but Rhiannon simply nodded her head, evidently satisfied with the capitulated untruth.

“So,” she said, once things felt a little less heated. “You’re… better?”

Ianto gave a one-shouldered shrug, not looking up from his hands.

“They put you on drugs?” she asked. “Not that that’s an issue, not with me. Anna, who lives across the street? She’s got depression. Takes drugs for that.”

“It’s not the same,” Ianto fibbed again, while completely and wholly telling the truth. “What I’ve got… can’t be treated with drugs.”

“No, I suppose not,” Rhiannon said, as if she understood.

Jack was running out of tea to drink in order to keep his mouth shut and face hidden.

“So, what did they do, then?” she asked curiously.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Alright,” she said. “Suit yourself.”

Then her eyes slid over to Jack, as if noticing him for the first time since they stepped inside.

“Who’s this?” she asked Ianto. “Is he like some sort of supervisor? Like a sponsor, or something?”

_“No.”_

“I’m his boss,” Jack said.

“Oh,” Rhiannon said.

She chewed on this for a moment, eyeing Jack’s coat and his braces and his face and his hair and everything else about him. Jack wondered if that piercing, scrutinising gaze was a family trait, because it felt quite like being stared at by Ianto’s own soul-searching stare.

“Well, that’s very good of you,” Rhiannon said. “Not many people would hire someone that’d been committed most of their life.”

And Jack ran out of tea.

“I find,” Jack ground through a forced smile, “Ianto to be a perfect employee.”

“That’s nice,” she said, as if it wasn’t really.

Jack’s forced smile went wider. “Yes. It is.”

“So,” she said, addressing Ianto again. “What is it you do?”

“Civil servant,” Ianto said quickly.

Jack sent him a raised eyebrow, but he didn’t notice it.

“Oh,” Rhiannon said. She seemed halfway between appeased and not—eyes sliding between Jack and Ianto both with two different looks: suspicion and consideration, respectively. “Right.”

“What do you do?” Ianto asked awkwardly.

“Me? Oh, nothing really. Just put flyers in envelopes. Technically, I’m part of the ‘advertising team,’ but really… well, I just put flyers in envelopes. That’s it.” She shrugged. “Still, keeps a roof over our heads, especially when Johnny’s out of a job. Which is always.”

“Johnny?”

Rhiannon made a face that was neither a smile nor a grimace. “That’s my husband.”

“Ah.”

“He’s taken the kids to his mam’s,” she said.

Jack hid his wince as best as he could. Kids. Had anyone exposed Ianto to a child since he came out? Probably not, it wasn’t as if it had really been on anyone’s to-do list. Possibly not even _Ianto’s_. Nobody dealt with children in Torchwood. Not much _happened_ to children. And Ianto was only twenty-four, so maybe he remembered being a child well enough… No, Ianto had spent his childhood not being a child… Wait, Ianto was twenty-four now. Had they forgotten to celebrate his birthday?

“Kids?” Ianto asked, just ask Jack decided this was something to seriously consider later on.

“David and Mica,” Rhiannon explained. “He’s seven, she’s three.”

“Right.”

Ianto and Rhiannon both took a sip of tea to cover the awkward pause. Jack managed to hide his sigh by making it long, slow, and almost silent. Almost. Ianto’s eyes flicked to him for an instant, then back to Rhiannon.

“Mum,” he said after a moment. “What about Mum?”

Jack wished for more tea as he hid his grimace behind a carefully placed hand.

“Mum… died,” Rhiannon said, with that uncomfortable tone used for breaking hard news. She wasn’t to know that Ianto already knew. “About a year back.”

Ianto nodded. “How?”

“Cancer,” she said. “She and Dad both. Well, he had liver cancer. Hers was breast cancer. But, um…”

She played with the mug in her hands, adjusting where the handle gripped in her fingers every second or so.

“She wasn’t happy, you know? Ever since you’d gone. You made her so miserable.”

Ianto’s face was impassive. “What do you mean?”

“Well, she couldn’t bear it, thinking about you.” She set her mug down, giving him a hard look. “It was all miserable after you’d gone. Dad was madder than ever, and Mum was sad all of the time.”

“I didn’t—it’s…” Ianto bit his lips together, bowing his head.

“They tried to act like nothing changed, but everything had, hadn’t it? You’d gone.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, mournful like Jack had never heard before. “I didn’t _want_ to go.”

“Why weren’t you just… _normal_?”

Ianto’s head snapped up again, his whole body going rigid and tense.

“I didn’t choose this,” he said.

Jack couldn’t decide between being confused or outraged by Rhiannon’s vacillating understanding on mental illnesses, or feeling proud of or awful for Ianto as a whole, but all left him with the understanding that he’d had enough.

“Thank you, Mrs Davies,” Jack said, before Ianto had to put himself through anything more. He pretended to check his watch. “But we’ve got to get going. Look at the time.”

Rhiannon checked her own watch. “Johnny and the kids should be back soon.”

Rhiannon didn’t outright say “I don’t want them anywhere near you” but her face certainly did. Jack wasn’t surprised. If she was set on her ideas about Ianto, then…

“It was lovely meeting you,” Jack said, though it felt like quite the contrary. He stood up and held out his hand. “I’m sure we’ll see you again sometime.”

“You won’t keep in touch?” she asked, breaking the handshake to frown at Ianto.

“We’ll try,” Jack assured her.

“Oh… alright…”

She came around the table, and Jack could see the hug coming from a mile away. Ianto, who hadn’t been hugged in maybe forever, didn’t expect it, and violently flinched when Rhiannon had barely so much as laid a finger on him.

Ianto managed to get himself away from Rhiannon, and that was about it. No final farewells. Just a quick and rather abrupt escape out the front door and back to the SUV.

“So,” Jack said once they were inside. “Civil servant?”

“She was already thinking it,” Ianto said tersely.

Jack took it that there was no making light of the situation, so he merely started the SUV and drove off into the night.

The drive back to Cardiff was even more dead than the drive to Newport. Ianto didn’t even move, for all Jack could tell. He didn’t dare break the silence, though. Not this time. Ianto deserved the time to process. Jack did, too, really. He found himself thinking about Gray. God, he hoped their reunion wasn’t as horrible as this one had been.

By the time they’d reached the hidden garage, Jack had run through approximately twelve different scenarios. Most of them were ones he’d imagined already, but a few were new. Rhiannon had evidently uncovered fresh ideas of how Gray could accuse him of abandonment. Jack hid a sigh.

He rolled the car to a halt, then parked it. Inertia lightly jerked them backwards, two seatbelts snapped open, and then that was it. True silence. All that existed was Jack and Ianto’s breathing, soft huffs in and out fighting, then intermingling. There was only so much of it that Jack could take.

“Ianto, I—”

Suddenly, Ianto was lurching across the gap between the seats, pressing himself to Jack—pressing his _lips_ to Jack. At first, Jack was shocked by the motion, and then he was shocked by the fact that he was being kissed. No, not just kissed. This was a full out _snog_.

“Mmph,” Jack mumbled.

He managed to push Ianto back off, leaning himself away as he did so.

“What,” he demanded, “was that?”

“A kiss,” Ianto said. His face creased into an expression of worry. “Did I do it wrong? I did, didn’t I? Only, that’s how people do it, in their heads; that’s how they always think about it, and—”

“Ianto, Ianto!” Jack interrupted.

Ianto shut his mouth with an audible snap.

“It was fine,” Jack said (and, surprisingly, it had been), “but you can’t just… kiss me!”

“Why not? That’s what you’re supposed to do when you fancy someone, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes… and no…” Jack said, struggling to find a way to explain the nuances of consent to someone who’d never heard of it before. “It’s… look, you just can’t fancy me, anyway.”

“Why not?” Ianto repeated.

“Because you just… can’t,” Jack said, unintelligently. “You… and me… that’s got to be Stockholm syndrome, or something.”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know?” Jack challenged. “You don’t even know what that is.”

“I do,” Ianto said, paired with a glare that showed just how a low of a blow it was to pick on Ianto’s lack of world knowledge.

“You do?” What kind of person had been thinking about Stockholm syndrome for Ianto to pick up on?

“Owen said I probably have it. From London.” Ianto sat back, eyes focusing on something out of the windscreen. “So, I looked it up. I don’t have Stockholm syndrome. Not for London. Definitely not for you.”

“Well, still,” Jack said. “You can’t just fall for the first person who’s nice to you.”

“You’re not the first person who was nice to me.” Ianto was starting to sound annoyed now.

“Look, you still just can’t—this can’t happen, Ianto,” Jack said. “Plain and simple. We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s just not right.”

And, for some reason, it wasn’t. Or, at least, it didn’t feel like it. Something felt off about it all. Like this wasn’t supposed to happen. Not… not yet, anyway. But Jack couldn’t say “not yet” because that would imply “sometime else” and Jack didn’t know if he was going to be around for “sometime else.” The century had turned twice—he couldn’t make those kinds of promises anymore.

“Right,” Ianto said after a tense silence. “Right. Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, which, judging by Ianto’s face and the weird feeling in Jack’s own chest, was not expected.

“It’s fine,” Ianto said.

He didn’t sound fine. Despite the way Ianto seemed to hold his deeper emotions deep inside of him, never to be seen or comprehended, things sometimes slipped through the cracks. He sounded hurt, and angry, and sad, and frustrated.

“Ianto—”

“Goodnight, sir,” Ianto said.

Then he opened the car door and slipped out.

“Goodnight, Ianto,” Jack sighed after the door snapped shut and the sound of Ianto’s footsteps began decrescendoing away.

Jack slumped into his seat, pressing the heels of his palms over his eyes.

“Jesus,” he realised with a groan. He’d been Ianto’s first kiss.

He’d been Ianto’s first kiss, and he’d turned it sour. Shit. What a way to have that—kissing someone only to have it cut short and then turned around like this. Absolutely horrible and nothing like Jack’s own first kiss.

Logically, Jack knew it was the right thing. All those reasons he’d thought up earlier…. It had to be right.

Then why did it feel so bad? Why did he have regrets? Why did he feel like chasing after Ianto, stopping him in the tunnel and showing him how to properly snog someone senseless?

He didn’t know. It was all slipping away from him.

“Jesus,” he repeated.

It was well after midnight before he could tear himself away from his seat and drag himself to bed.

* * *

Jack and Ianto rarely spoke to each other after that. There was the daily “good morning, sir” along with a fresh cup of coffee, and the daily “goodnight sir” when he slipped away for the night, and all the tiny necessary encounters that happened in the workplace, but that was all.

But then, one night nearly half a month later, Ianto came up to him, unprompted and unasked for. Jack had been surprised, then confused, because the only thing Ianto had to say to him was, “I’ll be moving into a flat by the beginning of next month,” which he felt required a follow up, even if Ianto didn’t, as evident by his turning and starting to walk away.

“Wait, what?” Jack asked.

Ianto looked back. “I have a flat, now.”

“So I gathered,” Jack said. “But… what the hell, Ianto?”

Ianto gave an inaudible sigh, then turned all the way back to face Jack.

“I figured it was time for me to move out of the Hub,” he said.

“What, just out of nowhere?” Jack said.

Ianto gave him an inscrutable look, and Jack realised that this probably _wasn’t_ out of nowhere.

“So, I asked Gwen, and she helped me look for a flat,” Ianto said.

“Oh,” Jack said, rather uselessly.

“And I found one. The lease starts next month,” Ianto said.

“But how will you get—”

“Tosh’s flat isn’t too far,” he cut over Jack. “She offered to give me a ride to and from the Hub every day.”

“Thoughtful of her,” Jack said, though he wasn’t certain how well that would work.

First of all, Toshiko tended to get here around the same time Ianto made the coffee in the morning. Ianto could easily start making it later, but… well, Tosh did tend to work late, but Ianto seemed to work later. Or so Jack guessed. He didn’t know how long Ianto spent in the Archives before he went off to bed; Jack had never asked. So, it was possible they had the same schedules, Jack supposed, but it still didn’t seem to line up.

“And I can just kip out here for a night or two, should the need arise,” Ianto said.

“Alright,” Jack said. “That’s… fine…”

Ianto nodded, then ducked out of Jack’s office.

Jack sat there, staring at the spot where Ianto used to be. It didn’t make any sense to Jack. Ianto couldn’t move out—Ianto was at the Hub. _Always_. That was a fact. That was how things were supposed to be.

Jack wasn’t averse to change, on the whole. Everything was always changing around the Hub, around Torchwood, around Earth and the twenty-first century. But… this wasn’t a change he liked. It wasn’t one he could stand. And that bothered him, because he didn’t really know _why_. Or maybe he did. He just didn’t want to think about it. He _couldn’t_ think about it.

“Oh, Ianto Jones,” Jack said, sighing to himself. “What am I supposed to do with you?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a nice day!


	9. Chapter 9

Jack didn’t know what it meant, having a dream about his old troop choking on petals only to wake up and find one on his desk. Ominous, that. Ominous, and troublesome. He didn’t think he could get such premonitions, but this felt off.

Something moved behind him. He dropped the petal down and whirled around to see—

Ianto.

He was holding a file, flipping through the top pages and scanning them quickly, his mouth moving wordlessly as he read. Jack found it endearing for reasons he couldn’t explain.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

Ianto started, glancing up at Jack. For once, the steely look in his eyes that had been ever-present for the past month was gone, replaced by a softness that only highlighted Ianto’s gently handsome face.

“Neither should you,” Ianto said, which didn’t make much sense.

He must have realised this, because then he quickly turned and stepped over to Owen’s station, fiddling with a computer. Jack followed him, mildly intrigued.

“What’ve you got?” Jack asked.

He forgot himself for a moment, letting his hand slide onto Ianto’s shoulder. He noticed his error not even a second later, but Ianto didn’t startle and flinch like he usually did at physical contact. He did glance quickly down at the hand, then up at Jack, but that was all. Then he sighed and straightened up.

“Funny sort of weather patterns,” he said.

And that was how Jack knew something was certainly amiss.

“Ianto,” he said, “do you get any sort of… premonitions?”

“You know I do,” Ianto said softly, turning back to the computers.

“How do you know if they’re right?”

This time, Ianto’s sigh was inaudible, only made known by the quick rise and fall of his shoulders. “Do you have to ask?”

“Humour me,” Jack said.

“Well…” Ianto picked up the file again, tucking it under his arm. “I wait a bit, and then I’m usually proven right.”

He turned, regarded Jack for a second, and then slipped past, going on to do whatever it was he was here to do at four in the morning. Jack watched him go for a moment before returning his attention to Owen’s monitor. Ianto had been right. There _were_ odd weather patterns forming. He closed his eyes shut. Wherever this was going, it was not going to be good.

And, in the end, Jack had been right. It wasn’t good. It was worse than not good, actually; it rated between complete and utter hell and one of the worst things that had happened to him in about five years. Estelle Cole, one of the very few people he’d come to cherish beyond all measures, was dead. Just one less thing tying him to this planet. He had so few of those now. He also let the fairies take a girl, leaving behind a childless mother who had already lost her partner just two minutes before he’d let the girl go. Add to that that nobody on the team was talking to him, and he was in one hell of a shitshow.

Well, almost nobody, as it turned out.

Truce came in the form of a late afternoon cup of coffee, set down next to the mountain of paperwork Jack now had to complete. Jack glanced up to see Ianto’s impassive face.

“You’ll need this to get you through that,” he said, nodding to the coffee and then the paperwork.

Jack sat up straighter. “I thought you all weren’t talking to me.”

“I don’t expect they are, no,” Ianto said.

“But you are.”

Ianto shrugged.

“I don’t know why you chose what you chose,” he said, voice low, “but I’m assuming you wouldn’t have let Jasmine go without a reason.”

“There was no other way,” Jack said. “I promise you, there wasn’t.”

“I believe you.”

Ianto moved the top file, lining it up with the one below it.

“Tosh says she went willingly,” he said. “You can’t be blamed for that. And if it was her or the world… I can understand why you chose what you did.”

“You can?” Jack asked. Ianto would be the first, if he did.

Ianto nodded, still lining up the files.

“Someone had to make that choice about me, once,” he murmured.

A flow of ice coursed through Jack’s veins. God, he hadn’t even thought about that.

“They chose wrong,” he said harshly.

“I know,” Ianto said. “I just know how it sits on the soul. You’re not that kind of monster.”

Jack reached out and took Ianto’s hand. Ianto stared at it, then glanced up at Jack.

“That won’t happen again,” Jack promised him. “Not on my watch.”

And right then and there, Jack silently prayed to whatever deity that was screwing over the universe, because this couldn’t happen again. These decisions… even if Ianto was right, and he wasn’t a monster, there wasn’t always a way to tell if there was a right or wrong. Nothing was clear-cut. For every Jasmine, there was a Ianto. And Jack didn’t want to have to be the person making the decisions for the Iantos of the world. Or the Jasmines, come to think of it. What if he’d had to sacrifice Gray like that, all over again? Or his own child? God, Steven, what about Steven? Jack couldn’t even bear to think what decision he’d make for Steven.

“Ianto?”

Ianto snatched his hand away from Jack’s, stepping back from the desk as Toshiko peeped through the door. Her eyes flicked between Ianto and Jack for a moment, but landed on Ianto when she determined, once again, that Jack wasn’t worth even a spare thought.

“I’m going home soon,” she told Ianto.

“I’m just finishing up,” Ianto replied smoothly. “I’ll be ready when you are.”

“Great.”

Then she popped out of view.

Ianto made to go after her, but Jack stopped him with a quick “wait.”

“Sir?”

“We’d planned a trip out to the countryside, before… this whole mess,” Jack said. “Just to the Brecon Beacons. There’s been a few cases of missing persons that’s cropped up recently, and we’re just going to see if it’s the Rift acting up that far out. It’s just a routine trip.”

“I see,” Ianto said. “I’ll stay in the Hub and make sure everything runs smoothly until you return.”

“Actually,” Jack said, “I was thinking you could come along.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow. “Me.”

“Yes, you. We’ll have to camp out. Perfect time for some team bonding.”

“I’m not prepared for the field,” Ianto said.

“I know. But like I said—routine mission.”

Jack waited, looking up at Ianto expectantly as Ianto’s eyes flitted about the room as he deliberated quietly to himself.

“Are you sure you won’t need anyone at the Hub?” he asked eventually.

“It’ll be on complete lockdown,” Jack said. “Nobody in or out without my codes.”

Ianto nodded.

“Wednesday,” Jack told him. “Bring your hiking shoes.”

Ianto opened his mouth, possibly to mention that he didn’t have hiking shoes (or maybe that he didn’t know what hiking was—though Jack hoped not), but instead he just closed his mouth and nodded again, and then disappeared out of the door.

* * *

Jack was beginning to wonder if he should start making lists of the bad things he couldn’t predict. It would seem he was very bad at reading signs. Just like with Suzie, and then Estelle, and many, many other times before, he’d missed a great deal of signs that this trip was heading to all the wrong places.

Like those damn hepatitis burgers. Bad food? That never boded well. Ever. While Jack technically could not have them get back in the SUV and head home just because of some story Toshiko told, it maybe should have alerted him to… something. Anything.

Or maybe Jack was just searching for answers he didn’t have in things that didn’t make sense. It didn’t matter, really. They went on with their journey, bad sign or not.

It was a surprise to Jack that Ianto actually knew how to set up a tent. He wasn’t sure if it was because of Ianto’s… thing… or if Ianto had been the only one to properly prepare for the trip. Jack didn’t want to ask. He’d finally just gotten into good graces with everyone again, and bringing up awkward subjects didn’t seem like a smart move on his part. Although Jack would readily and verbally admit, if it was brought up, that it was interesting to see Ianto out of his suits. It had been a while since he had worn denim.

“Oh, come on,” Gwen was calling as she helped setup, “it’s just a bit of fun! Who was the last person you snogged?”

Owen made some snide comment about the word “snog” and Gwen said something about Rhys… Jack was too busy scanning the area for signs of Rift activity to pay attention. Until Toshiko was goaded into saying her last kiss was Owen, anyway. Jack spared a glance up, somewhat shocked. Tosh… and Owen… huh. Jack spotted Ianto and saw the unimpressed face. Well, of course Ianto would know that. He’d probably caught snippets from Tosh’s own head. Though if Jack thought hard about it… it did make sense…

He shrugged. Now wasn’t the time to analyse any of that drama.

But then Owen said his last kiss was _Gwen_ , and suddenly he had to be a part of this.

Owen and Gwen? _Really_?

Alright, Jack would be the first to admit, he definitely had a thing for Gwen. She was hot, she was smart, and she was new. Who wouldn’t be attracted to that? Throw in the possible hero complex thing she had for him and the attraction to normalcy that Jack had for her, and yeah, there was something there. Not much of something, mind, because Jack only figured a shag or two between them would really work, just to rid themselves of the tension. And Jack had been dead certain until now that Gwen was wholly committed to her boyfriend, that Rhys guy. So much for that, he supposed…

He sat down next to Owen, intrigued by the way the conversation would continue to unfold. However, his sudden appearance had Owen turn the question over to him.

“Are we including non-human life forms?” he asked. Suddenly, that old rhyme from home was stuck in his head. ‘There once was a man from Malmok, whose tongue was as long as his—'

“Oh, you haven’t!” Gwen laughed.

“You’re a sick man, Harkness,” Owen said. “That is disgusting.”

“I never know when he’s joking,” Gwen said.

Jack chuckled. Twenty-first century humans… they’d never understand how _fantastic_ it gets out there.

His laughter died off at a slightly bitter voice saying, “It’s my turn, is it?”

The team seemed to freeze and turn to Ianto.

“It was no one,” Ianto said, looking up at Gwen.

Glances passed between Owen, Toshiko, and Gwen, uncomfortable and unsure. Jack’s grin just kept sliding off of his face.

No one.

Jack was torn between wondering when he suddenly became “no one” (which might’ve been a sign he needed to recheck the size of his ego) and between being… _hurt_. He didn’t know where the hurt came from, but it was there, and it angered him.

“Ianto, I’m sorry,” Gwen said after a moment.

“Sorry that it happened, or sorry you mentioned it?”

“I just didn’t think,” she said.

Ianto gave her a smile that was nothing at all like a smile. “You forgot.”

In the awkwardness that followed, Owen and Gwen begged off to go fetch firewood (a likely scenario). Jack sent Ianto a glowering gaze that Ianto couldn’t hold for very long.

“Everything’s a mess,” Toshiko muttered under her breath as she stood up from the camp bed and went back to fixing up her tent. Jack wasn’t sure if she was speaking metaphorically or literally; in either case, he agreed.

Ianto sat still on the camp bed, staring at the grass in front of him, while Jack got up to return to his readings, too frustrated to sit still for much longer. He didn’t know why he was so upset, but he was. Was it Gwen? Was it Ianto? Both? Something else? He angrily jabbed at the buttons of his vortex manipulator. Now he was just frustrated by the lack of readings. Why was there nothing? There had to be _something_!

“Something’s wrong.”

Jack snapped to attention, looking at a wide-eyed Ianto back on the camp bed.

“What is it?” Jack asked, anger forgotten instantly.

“Owen,” Ianto said. “He’s… there’s something wrong.”

“Toshiko?” Jack called.

“I heard,” she replied, checking her gun before stowing it.

Owen and Gwen had found a body. What was left of a body after it had been dismantled and ravaged, anyway. A slimy skeleton. It was absolutely disgusting to look at, and Jack would be burning that out of the inside of his eyelids for some time to come. He was far too distracted by its appearance to actually think about the appearance, which would have been his first real clue as to what was happening here. No species he knew of killed and maimed bodies like this.

“Must’ve been brought here after he died,” Owen said after he’d finished his report.

“Why do that?” Gwen asked. “It’s not like they’ve tried to bury him.”

“Maybe you disturbed them and they ran away,” Toshiko suggested.

Nobody else offered a suggestion and Jack didn’t have one himself. He crouched down next to Owen and the body.

“Cause of death?”

Owen made a face. “Impossible to say. Body’s been stripped of the flesh and bodily organs, so what is left is the carcase.”

“Could the Weevils have come out this far?” Tosh asked.

“No, Weevils don’t finish off their—”

“It’s a diversion.”

Jack cut off, frowning up at Ianto.

Ianto was holding the roll of caution tape, staring down at the body with an odd expression. Jack was just about to ask him what he meant, when off in the distance, a car started.

“Is that ours?” Gwen asked, as if there was any other vehicle for miles.

That should have been clue number two. Not many species knew how to drive—Blowfish did, a few humanoid ones could, and, oddly enough, Mintakans. But he wasn’t thinking about any of that. No, this time, he was distracted by getting pissed off at having to walk so far just to retrieve his damn vehicle.

Jack urged everyone to split apart as they hit the village. Owen and Gwen stayed with him for observation (clearly, neither were thinking rationally, if they wanted to shag each other), while Toshiko took Ianto the other way. Before Ianto left, though, Jack pulled him aside. Ianto started, like every time someone touched him unexpectedly—or touched him at all—but he calmed instantly and sent Jack a quizzical look.

“You getting anything?”

“Anything of what?” Ianto asked.

Jack gestured vaguely around. “Anything. Is there something you know that could help us?”

“Not really,” Ianto said. He squinted his eyes and glanced around. “A fox will scream later. It’ll scare Tosh.”

“Right,” Jack said patiently. “Anything that could be of more use?”

“I don’t know why you’d think I would.”

“You knew the body was a decoy,” Jack pointed out.

Ianto frowned. “Far too late for it to be any good.”

“Still.”

Ianto sighed, then looked around again. Jack almost considered walking away after a few moments, because they were wasting precious time, but then Ianto turned back to him.

“It’s just… I don’t think it’s what we think it is,” Ianto said.

He shook his head apologetically at Jack’s puzzled frown.

“That’s all I’m getting,” he said.

Then he took off after Toshiko.

And the third sign things were off passed him by, because he didn’t take two seconds to think about “what they thought it was.” _Aliens_ were what they thought it was. So, if it wasn’t aliens…

Then Gwen was shot, which should have been sign the fourth. That kid, Kieran or whoever… he’d seen Gwen’s face. He’d seen her and he’d shot her because he’d thought “they had come back.” There could only be one reason that he’d make the mistake of shooting Gwen. But Jack didn’t notice this hint, either, because he was too wrapped up in making sure Gwen was alright, and then trying to get her to understand she was injured and _no_ , she wasn’t allowed to go after the others.

“You are wounded!” Jack shouted.

“Do you think that’s going to stop me?” she yelled back.

And Jack had a choice—continue to argue and eventually have to give in, or concede now, while he was still ahead.

“Be careful,” he said. “Go.”

So, that meant he was on his own when he went down into the cellar. On his own when he realised just what sort of monster they were up against. And he liked it that way, in the end, because he had _years_ of training for torture and interrogation. None of it was pretty.

“You’re _what_?” Jack demanded, spit flying from between his teeth.

“God, that hurts, that hurts!” the cannibal cried as Jack leaned forward onto his bad leg.

“I always knew this planet was a backwater piece of garbage,” Jack said angrily, “but I didn’t think it was _this bad_.”

He placed more pressure on the man’s wounds, eliciting a scream of agony, then let go. He turned around, picking up the man’s discarded shotgun as he swept up out of the cellar.

“You can’t leave me!” the man pleaded. “I’ll die down here!”

And Jack slammed the door shut behind him.

Outside, Jack took a moment to breathe. _Cannibals_. Human-eating humans. And his team was probably being strung up and eaten by now. Rage surged through him, red and hot, and he spun in a circle, searching for possibilities. The lights in the distance indicated the townhouse the cannibal had told him about—Jack’s best bet was that house held all four of his team. Or maybe not. Maybe some had escaped. Either way, he needed to be there, and _now_ , so walking wasn’t going to cut it.

However, that tractor over there? That would do just nicely.

He wasn’t expecting the tractor ride to be so bumpy, nor for the shotgun to be that bland in comparison to his Webley, nor for Gwen to stop him from shooting the face off of a cannibal. He allowed her this. Mostly because the same question of _why?_ was rattling around in his skull, too. He felt as though he deserved _some_ clarity, for once.

Of course, he was Captain Jack Harkness, and the universe didn’t like to make even the simplest of things easy for him.

“Because it made me happy,” the cannibal whispered to Gwen.

Jack hauled the man off of her. “Come on. Out.”

He pushed the man forward, shoving him out of the townhouse and into the morning light. Jack personally hoped this would be the last sunlight the bastard would ever see. An officer took the man off Jack’s hands, and Owen popped out of the SUV.

“If you ever take me out to the bloody countryside again,” Owen snapped, “I’ll fucking mutiny.”

“Noted,” Jack said.

And then Gwen pushed between them, holding her side and continuing to stumble onwards.

“Where’s she going?” Owen asked after a moment.

“Don’t know,” Jack said.

“Better go get her before she bleeds out on some bloody hillside.”

Jack threw Owen an exasperated glower but started the first few steps after Gwen’s haphazard path along with Owen. While Owen may have overexaggerated Gwen’s sudden death on some grassy knoll, there had been some truth to his words. Gwen might not stop walking. Trauma had a weird effect on her, Jack decided.

“Don’t touch me!”

Jack and Owen freeze, stopping just short of the edge of the gravel.

“You get the teaboy,” Owen said after a moment, “and I’ll get Miss Shock.”

Jack nodded, then diverted his course back to the SUV.

Ianto was sitting there, perched tensely on the boot. His back was ramrod straight, his hands clenching his knees, but he was leaning away from a paramedic, who seemed to be trying to check him out. Jack couldn’t blame the paramedic—Ianto looked like he’d been beaten to a pulp. And he had been.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, “but I need to make sure that you’re not—”

“Don’t touch me!” Ianto repeated.

“I just need to—”

“Hey.” Jack stepped in, all smiles and charms, diverting the paramedic from Ianto. “There’s a woman who’s been shot. Go help her.”

“But—"

“Woman,” Jack said. “Shot.”

The paramedic opened his mouth, then closed it, trying to stare Jack down. Jack held his gaze calmly, although the residual rage from last night was still pulsing around somewhere and made it desperately hard not to drag the man away from Ianto by the hood of his stupid blue jumpsuit. The paramedic eventually got the hint, sighed heavily, and went away, following after Owen and Gwen.

Jack turned to Ianto.

“You alright?” he asked.

A ridiculous and rather pointless question, he realised a moment later, but Ianto nodded, anyway. Liar. Jack frowned sceptically at him and he glanced away, down to his feet.

“You do realise,” Jack told him, “Owen’s going to have to take a look at you. No matter how you feel about anything doctor-y.”

“I know,” Ianto said tersely.

“Right.” Jack nodded to the SUV. “Get in.”

“What?”

“I’ve had enough of this place,” Jack said. “There’s nothing more to do here but sit in misery. We’re going home.”

Ianto nodded once, standing up from the boot. He instantly stumbled sideways, and Jack grabbed him, righting him before he fell. Jack held onto him for a moment, their eyes locking, before Jack let go and allowed Ianto to drag himself around the SUV with the taught, jerky, puppet-like movements of someone whose muscles had been tenderised by a baseball bat.

Jack stood back, trying to catch Toshiko’s eye. She looked away from the paramedic she was speaking with a few times, but never to him, so it was a few minutes before he got her attention. He gestured to the SUV and she nodded, pardoning herself from her conversation with the paramedic.

Gwen was sent home via ambulance, which pissed of both her and Owen, who assured Jack he could see to Gwen just fine on his own. While Jack didn’t doubt Owen, he thought it was probably for the best if Gwen saw someone immediately, versus whenever Owen stopped being too drunk or hungover to do anything next.

It was quiet on the way back, save for the occasional near-silent grunt from Ianto as SUV made all the normal jostles and jolts of a vehicle. Jack found himself at the end of Toshiko’s solemn stare a few of those times. She’d told him about what Ianto had done. He glanced over to Ianto, who had his own eyes closed as he attempted to relax as best as he clearly could.

Owen demanded to be dropped off first, claiming he needed to be available for Gwen. Jack was sceptical, though he said nothing as he made the turn for Owen’s flat. When Owen was about to step out of the vehicle, he paused, then leaned closer to Jack.

“Scanned him,” he muttered, motioning minutely with the medical scanner from the SUV’s kit towards Ianto. “He’s fine. No internal bleeding. Haven’t ruled out a concussion, but if there is one… it’s minor. As long as he doesn’t pop too many pills, he’ll be alright. Tosh needs to… oh, she knows what a mobile is, I’ll just text her the bloody…”

He cut off with an annoyed exhale, then hopped out of the car and slumped off to his flat building without another word.

Tosh was dropped off next, and she made a hasty retreat to her house without a word to anyone. Though the glance she gave Jack was telling, and he figured he shouldn’t call her into work tomorrow. She needed a day to tear apart a few computers.

Ianto was last, as he lived only a short distance from Tosh. Jack parked and looked up at the building. It was… not _too_ bad, he supposed. Not where he’d expected Ianto to live, that was all.

“Ianto,” Jack said.

Ianto blinked at him.

“Your flat,” Jack told him. “Go home.”

Ianto obeyed silently, letting himself half-roll his way out of the vehicle as he popped the door open.

Jack managed to sit still and watch Ianto take two steps before the growing feeling in his chest overpowered him.

“Damn it,” he grumbled.

He got out of the SUV after Ianto, making haste to the other man before the Ianto’s legs decided they would rather him have a lie-down on the pavement.

Fortunately, Ianto made it all the way up and into his flat, only really fumbling with the key when they arrived at the door. Jack took it from between his tired fingers and unlocked the door himself, pushing it open. He followed Ianto in, then stopped dead on the other side of the door.

The place was _barren_. There was _nothing there_.

A sweeping glance around the kitchen-sitting room combo confirmed how lifeless the place was. The sitting room held one small sofa and a bookshelf as the only furniture. There was a few books and a picture frame on the shelf, but not enough to make it look anything but terrifyingly sparse. The walls were a blank white, maybe only accentuated by their slightly peeling paint. And the kitchen bar had nothing on it. Not a dish, not sheets of paper, not mail, not even a crumb. A coffee machine was the only thing sitting on the counter near the sink, and there was the refrigerator, but nothing aside from that.

Ianto stood in the middle of the kitchen-sitting room combo, right next to the bar, staring at his flat just the same as Jack was. Though Jack suspected brain fog was descending on Ianto rather than the shocking realisation that _nobody really lived here_.

“You should shower,” Jack said. “Owen said we could give you painkillers, but you might want to get the blood out of your hair first.”

Ianto reached a hand slowly to his hair, combing it through and then pulling it back to stare at it. Then he started shuffling off in the direction of his bathroom. Jack followed, only to have the door shut in his face.

“Are you sure you can manage on your own?” Jack called through the door.

The sudden sound of spraying water was his reply. Jack took the hint and returned to the sitting room.

At first, he sat on the sofa, staring at the flecks of peeling paint on the wall. He couldn’t take it for very long, so he had to stand up and meander through the room. Meandering was better when there were more things in the room to occupy Jack’s attention with. The only thing Jack had to look at here was the bookshelf. It held five books in total, all of them James Bond, all of them old, worn, and well-loved. They were tipped sideways in a way that implied they were standing upwards at one point but fell over as the thing holding them upright slowly slipped away from the weight. The picture frame that had been the bookend was slid too far to the right to hold anything up anymore. Jack noted the photo of a woman (very evidently a newspaper cutting) framed in the silver square.

Then Ianto returned and Jack’s attention was blissfully transferred to something less bleak.

Well, maybe not less _bleak_ , with all those purpling bruises, but definitely more interesting that five books and a single newspaper picture.

“Have you taken anything?” Jack asked.

Ianto something akin to a nod, then awkwardly shambled forward to the sofa. He was so stiff when he sat down that Jack almost jumped in and grabbed him before he fell to the ground, but he somehow made it onto the sofa. And then he slumped sideways, his face landing on the sole pillow.

Jack stood there, unsure what he was supposed to do. _He_ was the one who walked in here after Ianto, so he should have some idea what he should be doing. A minute ticked by before an idea flitted through his head. He turned on his heel and made his way into the kitchen. Might as well do a few things while he was here, starting with ridding meat from the refrigerator.

“What the hell?” Jack said the moment he opened the door.

The fridge was just as empty as the flat was. Emptier, even. There wasn’t a single thing in there. The light wasn’t even on, leading Jack to believe it wasn’t even plugged in. Sure enough, when he poked his head around to find the outlet, there was nothing connected to it.

“Ianto, do you even _have_ food?”

“Cabinets,” grunted Ianto from the sofa.

Jack slammed the refrigerator shut and stepped sideways to inspect the cupboards.

Well. At least they weren’t _vacant_. There was some porridge and three different packs of coffee. And then it was otherwise empty. Out of curiosity, Jack checked the types of coffee. Two of them were roasts that Jack was pretty sure Ianto also used at the Hub. One of them was opened. The third pack had a shiny ribbon artfully tied around it. A tag dangled from it. Jack turned it and read the gentle scrawl.

_“Hope you like the flat!_

_-Tosh.”_

Jack wondered for a moment if Ianto had a flatwarming party, then brushed it aside. He released the cupboard, letting it swing shut as he turned and walked back to the sofa. He leaned over it, frowning down at Ianto.

“Why don’t you have any food?” Jack asked.

Ianto, who had his eyes closed until then, blinked and squinted up at Jack with a bleary expression.

“Don’t eat here,” he said.

“Do you even live here?” Jack asked. He threw an arm out at the room before them. “Because it doesn’t _look_ like you live here.”

Ianto added a frown to his squint.

“Well,” he said, “when you grow up with only a bed, desk, and a chair, you don’t really know what to do with a lot of pointless furniture. Interior aesthetics haven’t much use to me.”

Jack cringed internally, but all Ianto did was turn his head back to its original position on the pillow.

“Besides,” he mumbled, his eyes closing again. “It’s not like I’m here much.”

Jack saw his point there. Jack’s own meals constituted of lunch and dinner with the team. And Jack _did_ live in the bunker…

“You’ve got more books,” Jack said.

“From Gwen. Haven’t had time to read them.”

“And the picture?” Jack asked. “Who’s that?”

Ianto’s eyes shot back open. He looked back up at Jack with an unreadable expression, then tried to push himself back up into a sitting position. Jack had to lean over the sofa to help him, because otherwise he would have just keeled over and faceplanted into the floor.

“Lisa,” Ianto said. “Lisa Hallett.”

The way he said it, mournful and empty, made something in Jack’s chest twist and pull. He knew that feeling. God, he _knew that feeling_. Loss. Grief. Emptiness.

“Who was she?” Jack asked.

“She was the nicest person I’d ever met.” Ianto paused for a moment, then continued on. “Worked for the labs when she was first hired. Came down to take readings off of me every morning.”

“Readings?”

“They might’ve stopped doing tests on me,” Ianto said, “but they didn’t stop studying me. Anyway, Yvonne Hartman was… she wanted to know what I knew.”

“So she’d send Lisa down to ask?”

“’s how they got Myfanwy,” he said. He took another moment to himself. “She had the opportunity for promotion, you know.”

“She didn’t take it,” Jack surmised.

Ianto shook his head. “She was so… _nice_. And kind. And I thought… well, I never thought I’d make it out of there, not alive, but…”

He trailed off, and Jack placed a hand on his shoulder. He glanced down at it, then up at Jack.

“Anyway,” he said, looking away again. “Doesn’t matter now. She’s dead.”

“Canary Wharf.”

“It’s funny,” Ianto said, his tone and volume rising. “‘Canary Wharf.’ That’s what everyone calls it. As if it isn’t a place. As if it wasn’t relevant until Torchwood London fell.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that.

“I got that from her obituary,” Ianto said, pointing to the framed photo. “Her mum gave her a nice funeral. Or so her sister thought.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“Don’t be.” Ianto dropped his hand to his lap. “It’s not like I was anything too important. Just the specimen she was studying.”

“You’re not a specimen,” Jack said. “And I doubt she saw you as one.”

Ianto said nothing.

“Not meat, either,” Jack added. “You’re human being.”

“I know.” Ianto sounded slightly tetchy.

“Do you?” Jack asked. “Because I’m going to have to remind Toshiko for the next few weeks.”

And Tosh had spent a lot less time locked away, he thought, though he didn’t dare say it out loud. That wasn’t his information to share.

“And I think I promised you that I wouldn’t let this happen to you again,” Jack said. “So, I owe you at least this much.”

“You didn’t promise anything,” Ianto protested.

“I believe my words were ‘routine mission.’”

“You didn’t _promise_ it would be,” Ianto reiterated. “You weren’t to know.”

“No, but I did promise I wouldn’t make the wrong choice for you,” Jack said.

Ianto turned and frowned up at him.

“And to make things worse,” Jack said, “you also weren’t prepared for this.”

“I do believe I told you I’m not ready for any fieldwork,” Ianto said dryly.

“Which is why you’re getting trained,” Jack said. “Because maybe I will make the wrong decision, even if by accident. And it won’t do to get yourself killed trying to save Toshiko, even though you don’t know how.”

Ianto looked abashed, ducking his head again and staring down at the floor.

“That being said,” Jack went on, “you did well.”

Ianto scoffed.

“I’m serious,” Jack said. “I’m not sure you or Tosh would have made it out alive if it weren’t for your… wait, did you really headbutt the guy?”

“’s why Owen thinks I’ve got a concussion,” Ianto murmured.

Jack wasn’t surprised. If not done properly, headbutting had the potential to land someone in Concussion City. One of the earliest self-defence lessons in the Time Agency Academy.

“I can teach you how to do it properly,” Jack said.

Ianto twisted around faster than he probably should, scowling at Jack confusedly.

“Hey, anything of mine you break will fix itself in less than an hour.”

The sceptical look stayed on Ianto’s face, but he said a slow “alright.”

Then silence descended over them. Jack rocked back on his heels once, twice, unsure what to say next. Ianto seemed to be equally uncertain of the quiet, his finger fiddling with loose threads from the lone pillow as he averted his eyes from Jack’s face.

“Get some rest,” Jack said eventually. “You need it.”

Ianto’s eyebrows flicked momentarily upwards.

“I’ll send Owen by later to give you a proper look over,” Jack said, not that he was he sure when “later” would be, if Owen was intent on… doing whatever he planned to do with Gwen. “And bring you some food.”

Jack watched Ianto for a moment longer, fighting the urge to rest his hand on Ianto’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Ianto said abruptly. “About the… at the camp…I just didn’t want…”

He sighed and shook his head, but it was a moment before Jack caught on. Right. Gwen’s snogging game.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jack said, though something was telling him it should. Maybe it was the way Ianto’s expression turned stony. He cleared his throat. “Toshiko won’t be coming in tomorrow. She’ll be staying in. I suggest you do the same. Get some rest.”

Then he gave a smile he didn’t feel, turned, and left the flat, back to the SUV waiting outside. He drove back to the Hub and poured himself a glass of Scotch, feeling the universe owed him a night off. When he had to drag a Weevil out of Bute Park at two am, he wondered if it was another sign. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Malmok is both a place and also a star. I am referring to the star (and thus a made-up star system), here.  
> Thank you for reading! Have an amazing day!


	10. Chapter 10

Jack didn’t think anyone had told her, because nobody seemed to tell her these kinds of things, but Toshiko looked lovely when she cried. Jack sat with her, trying to reconcile humanity to her yet again.

“What do we do with it?” she asked.

Jack looked to her as she studied the pendent.

“Your call,” he told her.

“It’s a curse,” she said.

Jack watched her drop and crush the pendent beneath the toe of her boot.

“Why couldn’t I read your mind?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, completely honest. Mental shielding? His was somewhat developed, but not that useful for something probing around his subconscious. “Though I could feel you scrabbling around in there.”

“But I got nothing,” she insisted. “It’s like you were… I don’t know… dead.”

He looked away, trying to think of something to say. What he came up with was a joke, and it made Tosh happy, if only for a second.

“Jack? Something Mary said. Probably the only honest thing she ever did say.”

Jack waited on, patient.

“I asked her why she gave it to me, and she said, after a while it gets to you.” The tears had started pricking the corner of her eyes again. “It changes how you see people.”

He put a hand on her knee.

“How can I live with it?” she asked.

“There are some things we're not supposed to know,” he told her. “You got a snapshot, nothing more.”

“I don't mean about Gwen, and Ianto, and Owen,” she said. “I mean the whole world. It doesn't matter.”

Jack had planned for the conversation to end there, but something had occurred to him.

“Ianto.” He turned to her fully, staring her head-on. “I think you should talk to Ianto about it.”

“Oh, god,” she said. A hand flitted to her mouth. “Oh, god, I forgot… I didn’t…”

“It’s alright,” Jack said. “I think you’re allowed a moment of shock.”

“I said all those things,” she said, heedless of him. “And he has to live with that, every day. How does he stand it?”

“I don’t think what you heard is the same,” he told her gently. “But if you really need to know… talk to him.”

She nodded, sniffing.

“Might as well,” she said, forcing a smile on her face. “I think he needs it. He’s… lonely.”

Jack tilted his head, frowning. “Lonely?”

“Yeah.” She sat up straighter, hands folded in her lap. Back to business again, it would seem. “I didn’t… I didn’t get much from him. Not anything that would make sense. It was all so… so _much_. God, I can’t believe I forgot that…”

She took a moment to herself, looking what Jack could only label as disturbed and stunned. Then she shook her head.

“But there was this feeling,” she said. “The only thing that really made sense. It felt like loneliness. Or emptiness. I don’t know, it’s all just…”

She trailed off.

“If I’m making those reports,” she said, frowning, “how is he going to get home?”

Jack hadn’t considered that. He’d been too busy wondering if why Toshiko couldn’t hear him was the same reason Ianto couldn’t read him.

“I’ll get him a cab home,” Jack said. “Or something. Don’t worry about it.”

She nodded, looking down at the ground again. Jack stood and brushed a hand through her hair, then wiped away the remnants of a tear. He left her then, letting her take a moment to reflect.

The Hub below depicted a deceptive image of emptiness. Nothing stirred as Jack stood at the cog door and surveyed the place. But he knew Ianto was lurking in here, somewhere.

He wandered around for a bit, looking for Ianto in his usual hidey-holes. Ianto appeared in none of them.

At one point, he was tempted to just stop at the middle of the desks and shout for the man, when he heard a peculiar noise coming from somewhere up above.

His first reaction was to check the invisible lift and make sure it wasn’t about to suddenly plummet down to the Hub below. The thing didn’t budge an inch and the noise came again from somewhere to the left of the water tower, so Jack took his suspicions elsewhere. Right to Myfanwy’s makeshift roost, that was.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked the empty hole as he stood below it. “Please say you aren’t choking on a fish again.”

With a sigh, he began the long ascent upwards.

When he reached the small cave-like dwelling, he stood near the entrance and peered cautiously inside. Last time he’d entered without looking, he’d ended up getting pecked in the eye.

He hadn’t expected to find Ianto up here, sitting across the small cave from the dinosaur.

“Ianto?” he asked, stunned.

Ianto glanced over to him, holding a hushing finger over his lips. Then he returned his attention to Myfanwy, throwing her something. It fell on the ground in front of her, and she pecked it and ate it. Ianto watched her finish it off, one hand beckoning for Jack to join him. Intrigued, Jack ducked quietly into the alcove, sitting down beside Ianto.

“Dark chocolate,” Jack whispered amusedly as Ianto threw the dinosaur another chunk.

“I told you she’d like it.” He didn’t look at Jack, continuing to watch Myfanwy gobble up the latest bit of chocolate.

“So,” Jack said, “you come up here and… hang out with Myfanwy? Teach her tricks?”

Ianto threw an exasperated sideways glance at Jack. “She’s not a dog. It doesn’t work like that.”

“I thought you were the one insisting she was a pet.”

“Not all pets are dogs, sir,” he said coolly. “Myfanwy is Myfanwy. She likes her space. She likes it if you bring chocolate. That’s all.”

Jack could imagine how nice that would be for Ianto. Quietness, space, and chocolate. A break from the hustle and bustle of the Torchwood lifestyle (and maybe from Ianto’s own head) alongside someone who understood. Or understood as much as pterodactyls—pteranodons, Ianto said she was a _pteranodon_ —could understand anything, Jack supposed.

“Does she ever let you close?” Jack asked.

Ianto shrugged. “Never tried.”

Jack nodded, unsure of what else to do. Ianto popped a small chunk of chocolate in his mouth before tossing a larger one at Myfanwy. She snapped it up immediately, then clicked her beak, possibly in a plea for more. Ianto threw her one last sizable piece, then wrapped the remainder of the chocolate back up. He motioned for Jack to leave.

On the catwalk near the roost, Jack stopped Ianto.

“Tosh is staying here,” Jack informed him.

“To work on her list for UNIT, yes,” Ianto finished. “I know.”

Jack nodded, though he wondered how much Ianto had gleaned from the conversation he and Toshiko had. “Good. I’ll get you a cab.”

“No need,” Ianto said. “My old room is still here. I can work in the Archives until I… pass out, I suppose.”

He smiled, one of those smiles that usually assured others. Jack had seen it too much to be fooled.

“Tell you what,” Jack said. “How about we go down to the gun range. Just you and me.”

Ianto blinked, then frowned.

“What for?” he asked.

“I promised you training, didn’t I?”

“I suppose,” Ianto murmured, studying Jack.

“Gun range,” Jack repeated. “Ten minutes.”

Ianto’s face slowly broke into the smallest hint of a smile.

“Ten minutes,” he echoed. “Are you counting?”

Jack rolled his eyes and turned away.

He tried to set the gun range up thoroughly. The Weevil bullseyes were riddled with holes, so Jack replaced them. He set seven guns out: three versions of Torchwood’s standard .45 calibre handguns, his own Webley, the tasing gun, and the alien equivalent to a flamethrower. Jack figured they wouldn’t get to that one tonight, but it was worth having around.

Jack couldn’t be sure that Ianto walked in ten minutes later to the dot, but considering that it was Ianto, he wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

“Might as well teach me to rob a bank,” Ianto remarked dryly as he observed the array of guns on the table.

“First things first,” Jack said.

He held out earmuffs for Ianto. Ianto frowned at them.

“Do I need those?”

“The only reason you wouldn’t use these here,” Jack told him, “is if you were already deaf.”

Ianto took the earmuffs and put them on without another word. Jack smirked as he put his own on, then handed Ianto some protective eyeglasses. This time, Ianto didn’t hesitate before donning them.

“But why guns, though?” Ianto asked. “I thought you’d be teaching me to properly break someone’s nose. Won’t I need to learn some hand-to-hand combat for that? Or, rather in that case, face-to-face?”

“Well,” Jack said. “Think of it this way. You never know when you’ll next be in a one-handed shoot-out with a squid.”

Ianto glanced at him, brows furrowed. “Can that happen?”

Jack chuckled lowly. “Believe me, you don’t want to find out.”

Ianto’s strange look lingered on him for a while. It wasn’t Jack’s fault he didn’t know of the dangers of rogue squid. Though it was up to Jack to make sure that never changed.

“Right,” Jack said, selecting a handgun and handing it to Ianto. “What do you know already?”

“Point and shoot,” Ianto said automatically.

“Whoa, there, James Bond,” Jack said as Ianto stepped into an odd stance. “Let’s leave the dramatics outside, shall we?”

“You’re one to talk,” Ianto grumbled, but he fell out of the position.

Jack reached a hand out to correct his form, like he’d done last month with Gwen, like he’d done three years ago with Owen, four with Toshiko, and dozens and dozens of times before. Standard routine for him. Flirt as long as he could get away with it. But this time, Jack’s hand stopped just short of Ianto’s arm. He pulled it back and picked a gun up instead.

“Like this,” he said, demonstrating the correct posture himself. “Nice and slow. Don’t whip it around.”

Ianto rolled his eyes, copying Jack’s stance.

“Good.” Jack said. “Look down your shoulder, straight to the sights. Firm hold, but don’t grip it. Breathe and focus. And… squeeze the trigger gently.”

The gunshot was loud. Ianto didn’t flinch, but his eyebrows shot up as he lowered the gun.

“That’s why we wear these,” Jack said, tapping his own earmuff. “Good shot. Though I’m taking a chance and betting that was luck. Again.”

Ianto wasn’t the best he’d ever trained (that had actually been Owen—his hatred of Jack’s flirting lead to oddly good results), he was not the worst by far. His aim was good and his stance was fine, but he was tense, which threw things off. Jack repeatedly had to remind him to relax, but his shoulders only bunched up even more every time.

The best results Ianto had was when he was testing out the taser. Ianto had jokingly dubbed it the “stun gun” and had brought Jack to his knees with it. _Not_ in the fun way.

“Alright,” Jack said eventually. “I think that’s it for the night.”

“But there’s still that one left,” Ianto said, nodding at the flamethrower.

“We don’t need to go over the flamethrower,” Jack said.

“Then why’s it out?”

Jack shrugged. “Just is.”

“Maybe I should learn to use it,” Ianto suggested. “You never know.”

“Next time, maybe,” Jack said.

And Jack moved to pack up the guns. He wasn’t sure if he had expected Ianto to leave or to help, but he certainly hadn’t expected Ianto to stand there and stare at him as he cleaned up. Jack stopped holstering his Webley and frowned at him.

“What?”

“What was this about?” Ianto swept an arm out, gesturing to the table and the range behind him. “All of... this.”

“Training?” Jack frowned at him. “It’s… training.”

“Why?”

Jack opened his mouth, mostly to say something along the lines of “I thought we’d discussed that” or something, but instead his lips reformed and asked, “What are you getting at?”

“This wasn’t about training, was it?” Ianto’s hands found his hips in that way Jack either assumed to mean flustered, furious, or fumbling for answers. Jack worried which one this fell under. “Sir?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Sir,” Ianto said again, no-nonsense tone steely and cold. “Jack.”

Jack folded his arms. “Alright. Fine. Maybe I also thought you didn’t need to spend the night alone.”

“Why would that be?” Ianto asked.

When Jack didn’t answer, his face darkened.

“It was Tosh, wasn’t it?” he asked. “What did she hear from me?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, the barest hints of truth smoothing over any guilt of the somewhat-lie.

“She must’ve said something, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

Jack fumbled for a response to that, and in his returned silence, Ianto huffed a displeased sigh and looked away.

“You all think I’m some child, or an idiot,” he said. “I’m not. I just don’t know a lot of things. Or if I know them, I just don’t _know_ them. But I’m not stupid.”

“We know that,” Jack said, unsure where this was going.

“No, you don’t,” Ianto said. “You’re all happy to think of me as some little kid. Pat me on the head, give me a lolly, and tell me I did good. Or waste the night placating me.”

“We’re just trying to help.”

“Help?” Ianto scoffed. “You haven’t a clue how to help me.”

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it and frowned, waiting for Ianto to explain.

“I mean, you all _say_ you want to help, but you don’t know how,” Ianto said. “So you don’t try. Not in any way that matters.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, “if I’ve—”

“I’m not finished yet,” Ianto interrupted.

Jack’s mouth snapped shut, mostly out of shock. Ianto wasn’t one for this. Was he?

“When you _do_ try to help,” Ianto went on, “you never think about how to help _me_. You all just try to help some traumatised, naïve version of me that you think you see. But that’s not what I want. It’s not what I need, sir.”

“Well, then, what do you need?” Jack asked, becoming very confused.

For a moment, Ianto said nothing. Then, in two quick strides, he closed the gap between the two of them. And then he snogged the living hell out of Jack.

He did not stop snogging the living hell out of Jack, actually.

“Ianto,” Jack gasped between one kiss and the next, “this is not a—a good idea…”

“Shut up,” Ianto said, all tongue and lip and mouth, “and kiss me.”

And, for whatever reason, Jack did.

* * *

They never talked about their impromptu affair in the gun range. They didn’t even acknowledge it had happened. Jack thought about it to himself, sometimes (because, hell, he had been Ianto’s first _fuck_ , and if that wasn’t something to think about every now and again), and he was sure Ianto did the same on his own, but other than that… it just flew by, unmentioned, unquestioned, and unlabelled.

Life picked up again. Tosh buried herself deep into work to forget what had happened, Owen and Gwen upped up their gambit, and Ianto otherwise kept himself to himself. Jack finally gathered the courage and strength to ask Ianto his burning questions about what may have happened to Rose and Jackie Tyler, but Ianto had unfortunately gotten no read on either of them. Jack buried his head in routine work to keep himself from considering what that meant.

But, of course, this was Torchwood, and life could only continue on a certain trend here for maybe a week or so.

When Jack stood over Suzie’s corpse for the (hopefully) final time, and Ianto propositioned him.

“Thanks for doing this,” Jack said.

“Part of my job, sir,” Ianto replied. Then he stopped writing and frowned. “Well, actually, I think some of it was Owen’s, but he was busy, and I’d… sort of picked up how to do it, so I just…”

He blinked and let the sentence hang, then bent his head over the clipboard again and scribbled more words down.

Jack turned and leant against the morgue drawers behind him, crossing one boot over the other. God, it was depressing down here. He knew every last person in every last drawer.

“One day we’re going to run out of space,” he sighed.

“If… you’re interested…” Ianto said after a small pause, “I’ve still got that stopwatch.”

Jack frowned at him, confused. Sometimes, Ianto had the strangest ways of broaching new topics. He didn’t know if that was because Ianto didn’t know how to interact with people well enough yet, or if it was because Ianto was just like that.

“So?”

“Well. Think about it,” Ianto said, a smile folding up the corners of his lips and a small light behind his eyes. “Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch.”

Jack, being himself, knew an attempted innuendo when he spotted one. He couldn’t help but grin.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I can think of a few.”

“There’s quite a list,” Ianto said.

Jack wondered just what _exactly_ Ianto had pulled from the ether into that marvellous brain of his for an entire list of things to do with a stopwatch. He supposed it didn’t matter—he was intrigued to find out in any case. Well… more than _intrigued_. Ecstatic was perhaps a better word.

“I’ll send the others home early,” Jack said. “See you in my office in…” He made a show of checking his watch. “Ten.”

“That’s ten minutes…” Ianto made an equally great deal of pulling out his stopwatch and clicking the top. “And counting.”

Jack eyed him a moment longer, just to be absolutely certain Ianto had no hesitation on his part. In finding nothing, Jack pushed off the morgue drawers and began to make his way out.

And, after some more talk about resurrection—which proved to be slightly concerning for a few reasons—and quickly and quietly shooing his team home, Jack was pleased ( _ecstatic_ ) to see Ianto walking into his office exactly ten minutes later, on the dot, a stopwatch floating lightly in the air in front of him.

“Ten minutes,” Ianto said.

The button on the watch clicked itself downwards as if by magic, and Jack grinned.

* * *

The team had decided to take the night off and go celebrate a bit at a pub on New Year’s Eve.

Jack kept himself secluded in the Hub. While he partially wanted to keep his eye out on the team, because he _knew_ what could happen on this holiday, he also needed the time to clear out his head on his own.

He was frowning up at Myfanwy’s roost, waiting for her to stop puncturing holes in the basketball, when he received the call.

“We, um,” Toshiko said, “might’ve forgotten… um.”

“Toshiko?”

“Well, see, we knew he’d never had anything to drink before, right?” Owen said, having commandeered the mobile when Toshiko couldn’t find the words to continue. “But we didn’t think… about the consequences.”

It took Jack a moment to realise what they were talking about, but when it hit him, he groaned.

“How bad is he?”

“Wasted,” Owen said bluntly.

Jack heaved a sigh. “I’ll take him home.”

He hung up and closed his eyes tightly shut for a moment, then sighed again and headed off to the SUV.

At the pub, Owen was drinking steadily (which Jack figured was probably a constant thing for Owen now that Diane had gone), while Gwen and Toshiko sandwiched Ianto in the tiny booth, evidently propping him up. Ianto seemed to have slipped into a dazed trance, staring at Owen as he drank.

“Ianto,” Gwen said gently, “Jack’s here.”

Ianto blinked, hard, and glanced up at Jack.

“Oh,” he said, then laughed.

“I’ve got it from here,” Jack told Toshiko, who slid out of the booth so that he could fetch Ianto.

Ianto, loose-limbed and pliant, was hard to get out of the pub and into the SUV, but Jack somehow managed. Jack almost wondered if he was high rather than drunk, because Ianto stared unblinkingly out of the window the entire drive to his flat. When they arrived at the place, Jack had to again manhandle Ianto out of the vehicle, half walking and half carrying Ianto up the steps.

“Where are your keys?” Jack asked at the door.

“’n m’pockets,” Ianto mumbled, leaning heavily against Jack.

Jack stuck his hand into Ianto’s pocket (which made Ianto gave a mildly unhinged giggle, though Jack was under no circumstances letting tonight get anywhere near what Ianto might have been thinking) and found the key. He unlocked Ianto’s flat and then helped the man through the dark to his room.

When deposited there, Ianto sat down heavily on his bed with a content sigh. Jack pulled his shoes off for him, placing them on the floor at the foot of the bed, then slowly wrangled Ianto out of his suit and tie.

“Ianto…” Jack breathed when he had Ianto down to his undershirt and pants.

This was the first time that Jack both had proper lighting and the time to make out the scars littering Ianto’s skin. They rippled up his neck and dripped over the edge of his shoulders. Jack pushed the shirt up to see more streaming up and down Ianto’s back. He was torn between disgust at Torchwood One, fascination by the patterns they made, concern for Ianto, intrigue by the beauty, and… many, many other unnamed and unknown emotions.

“Ianto, how much did they do to you?”

“Mmwhat?”

Jack brushed his hand up the scars on his neck, running his fingers through Ianto’s hair. He could feel raised flesh there, too. Thin and small enough that the rest of Ianto’s hair could cover, but certainly there.

“Hmm,” Ianto said, smiling at the contact.

“These were all tests?” Jack asked. “Experiments?”

“Oh… yes…” Ianto said listlessly. “Lots of them. And they didn’t make me look pretty afterwards.”

Ianto gazed down at himself for a short while after that, blinking at his skin with semi-focused eyes.

“Don’t worry. You’re still pretty,” Jack assured him.

A laugh bubbled out of Ianto’s lips and Jack smiled.

His fingers, still tracing over Ianto’s skin, found a particularly long and thick scar going down the vertebrae of Ianto’s neck. He traced a finger down it. Ianto closed his eyes and shuddered at the soft touch.

“You don’t hate it when I touch you?” Jack asked.

Ianto shook his head. “It’s… nice. You’re quiet.”

“And other people aren’t?”

“Everyone else fills my head, but… you’re quiet,” Ianto repeated. “I don’t know anything about your future or your past or your thoughts. You just… _are_.”

He leant his head back, effectively brushing Jack’s fingers back up into his hair so that Jack was cradling his head. Jack mused quietly on how Ianto would react to the memory of this when he was sober. Or maybe he _wouldn’t_ remember this. Nobody knew Ianto’s tolerance for alcohol yet. Jack didn’t even know how much Ianto even drank.

“Is that what you like about me?” Jack asked. “I’m quiet?”

“No,” Ianto said. “Yes. No.”

He seemed to be leaning more and more into Jack’s hand, so Jack figured this was the end of the night for him. Jack helped him lay down, then threw some blankets over him. When Jack tried to get up to switch the lights off and leave, Ianto’s hand grabbed his.

“Don’t go,” he murmured.

“Ianto?”

“Stay,” Ianto said, simply and plainly.

“Ianto, that’s—”

“Please.”

And Jack looked at him, and all of the sudden found himself unable to do anything. Well, anything except slip off his own coat and shoes, pop his braces off his shoulders, slide out of his trousers and shirt, and crawl into bed beside Ianto.

They’d only spent a few nights together, and all of them in the Hub. All of them completely sober. Ianto hadn’t cuddled up to Jack any of those times, but he certainly did now. Jack craned his neck sideways to eye Ianto, just to be certain this was Ianto’s intention. Noting Ianto’s contented and relaxed face, he smiled softly, then pressed a kiss to Ianto’s hair.

Ianto fell asleep before Jack did, because Jack still hadn’t quite mastered a peaceful and easy sleep. And also, Ianto was rather inebriated, and had been practically one step away from “passed out” for some time now.

But the time awake gave Jack time to think, too. To process everything.

He didn’t think he would ever grow to feel like this about a person who would willingly feel it back. Not like this. Or not like the way this was _starting_ to, at least.

Ianto snuffled in his sleep and moved, burying his face into Jack’s neck. Jack smiled more to himself, running his fingertips up and down Ianto’s scarred back, softly and gently lulling him in his sleep, and contemplated Ianto some more.

Was this the beginning of Ianto? The true beginning? It seemed that, finally in these past few months, Ianto had learned to start picking out bits and pieces of himself to show the world. Or to show Jack, anyway. And he had started fitting those bits and pieces of himself into the larger picture, interweaving himself into the universe’s grand design.

Jack couldn’t begrudge him for taking so long to begin finding his place in the world. Maybe he’d been more confident, back in his box of forcefields, where he’d never fall. The universe took some adjusting to, to learn to never lean where the walls no longer were. To learn to walk the edge without falling over, or to take those first steps to freedom. But uncertainty (and lack of knowledge) didn’t make him any _less_ ; it just made him different.

God, Jack thought back to when he hired Gwen. He’d done that for what, to introduce normalcy to the team? To _Ianto_? Jack regretted that more than anything. While he could never and would never regret Gwen, he would always regret using her like that. It was neither fair to Ianto nor Gwen. Besides, who needed normal, anyways? Jack always had an eye for different.

And a soft spot.

With another smile, Jack planted a final tender kiss into Ianto’s hair.

“Happy New Year, Ianto Jones,” he whispered.

He settled down then, and drifted off, hoping that this year, and the next, and the next after that, and all the years that Ianto would ever live to have, would see Ianto soaring. Walking that edge without falling. Though, he supposed, even if Ianto were to fall, Jack would be there to catch him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally intended to be a full-series rewrite, but I cut it short when I realised that wasn't a feasible thing for me after eight months of struggle. It will have smaller sequels to cover other events, starting with The Year that Never Was (explaining why Ianto is the way he is) and ending post-CoE (obviously a fix-it), so if you like this, please stick with this series!  
> That's all for now! Please look out for the next fic in maybe about a week!  
> Thank you for reading! Have a good day!


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